


Your Sex and Your Diamonds

by SpunTop



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Childbirth, F/M, Implied/Referenced Death in Childbirth, Masturbation, Pregnancy, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts, Triggers, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-01 05:59:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6503692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpunTop/pseuds/SpunTop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Was watching Season 1 and 2 when I wondered what the group would look like to someone that met them after the farm was destroyed. Will add characters as go along. </p>
<p>Warnings have been added because I don't want to upset anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Your Sex and Your Diamonds

Was watching Season 1 and 2 when I wondered what the group would look like to someone that met them after the farm was destroyed. Toyed with it for a little while and created an average character that I think could be real. First attempt was a man and his family but it lacked dimension. So I tried again and decided to explore how a group that started with 'preppers' among them would look to an outsider and what issues that would tend to create. Then move onto my character meeting Rick's group. At first, my character was a little older and had a full grasp of the big picture, but she was too perfect and never got used or trusted the wrong person. I decided to create a more flawed character. She's capable of courage like we all are, but she isn't always a pillar of strength and fortitude. I've also tried not to turn her into a persistent victim. I've tried to turn her into someone that grows and learns. Result so far is not pretty, but decided it fit with the theme of the show. I have an over arching plan, but I'm not finished. I haven't been writing in awhile but have returned to school and writing a lot of long, dry, academic papers has left me craving writing something that isn't a thesis making an argument. Sorry, I've done a shit job of editing. I've been more focused on the plot. 

*There is a risk of offending a few people due to an adult having sex with someone underage and there are a number of sex scenes early on. Personally, I find it irritating when people skip or gloss over these points in stories because in real life, these are some of our critical moments. I include because I find the experiences relevant to character development and plot line. Forewarned it forearmed.*

DISCLAIMER: You gotta know this already but here's the not so big secret: I don't own Walking Dead or it's characters in any way, shape or form. 

Under a brilliant blue sky, surrounded by a green oasis, on a black tarmac road, one family’s difficult journey had reached its crisis point. The patriarch sat in the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel, staring through the windshield and listening to the breeze. The matriarch pursed her lips and glanced over her shoulder at her three daughters. The oldest chewed on her nails while looking out the window as though in boredom. The middle frowned at the dashboard as though it were a person saying something she didn’t want to hear. And the youngest gripped her seat, the white’s of her eyes visible. The three teenage girls knew the problem was serious, but judging by their father’s silence, sensed it was worse than they knew. 

Three weeks had passed since the television stopped broadcasting. Three weeks since shit hit the fan. Since their world had become a war zone they had been forced to live on the road. 

“Sir?” Emily, the middle daughter spoke up to their father first. She could tell without looking that her older sister was glaring daggers at her. Agatha was always against any direct confrontation with their father. “You said we have to keep moving until we find somewhere safe.” Shifting her eyes up to the rearview mirror, his eyes met hers. She glanced away quickly and looked at the woods around them as though unseen attackers lay in wait. “I know-” 

There isn’t a good way to say this. She hesitates but decides she has come this far, rip it off like a band air. “We’re sitting ducks here aren’t we? Can fix the car or start walking? Because I’m not staying in here like this.” 

Her mother’s eyes widen in alarm and she senses her sisters terror. She knows her father hates having his authority undermined. But she knows he hates cowards more and hiding in this car is cowardly. Staring into the abyss won’t get this car started and it won’t keep them alive. 

“I can’t.” He says so quietly, she isn’t sure he even said it at first. 

“You can’t what?” 

“John…” Her mother says warningly. 

“I can’t take anymore.” He says and turns his head back to meet her eyes. 

That’s when she sees it. For the first time in her life. Her big green giant, military Dad has met his match. Something has broken in him and she feels terror for the first time since this all started. Her father is ex-special forces. She has known about his PTSD since he left the military but he has never done this before. He is her male role model. The most powerful man she knows. Her protector. At 17 years old, she knows better but can’t shake the feeling that he is god. Now she can see it in his eyes that he is broken and if the world wasn’t in the middle of this shit show, they could do something about it. This would normally be a survivable setback. 

In the middle of what looks like the apocalypse, she doubts this is survivable. She doesn’t have time for him to get his act together. This might just sound their death toll. 

“John, can you get out of the car for a minute?” Her mother words it as a question, but she knows as her daughter, from the tone of her mother’s voice that it’s an order. She’s never heard her mother give him an order before. They get out of the car while the three girls sit in the car. 

Emily’s mind races. Truth be told, she has never trusted her mother’s judgement in tense situations. Both of them have heated tempers but she learned her mother is particularly bad for getting on the wrong side of people. Agatha might be nineteen but she has always been too selfish to take care of anyone but herself. Push comes to shove, her older sister isn’t on her side. And Nina might be a tad spiteful when angered, she is ultimately a softy with a low self esteem. She will endure, pushing her body to extremes without complaint. But when faced with violence her little sister has always succumbed to fear. 

Why is any of this relevant? Because their stolen car died 20 minutes ago. At first it squealed and smoked. It had been going on for a few days. Her father had checked it out, added tons of water and coolant and tried to steal another vehicle. But none of it had panned out. Her mother’s voice rises outside the car. Surely alerting any undead to their specific location. 

The truth is she has a gut feeling about this. It is hard to explain, but deep down, she knows something is about to happen. She should say something to her parents but from the looks of her mother, that won’t do anything. Her eyes catch movement the treeline. She reaches across Agatha and knocks hard on the window. Her mother make eye contact with her and she points to where she saw movement. Her father still looks detached and disinterested. The man has brought them from DC and multiple attacks, but he isn’t going to get them through this. 

Her first guess is undead following the noise. She snatches the blankets and pulls Nina down to the floor of the truck. “Get down.” She snaps. And the three of them drop to the floor of the car and pull the blankets over them. They hear gunshot blasts interspersed with pauses. Their mother yelling. More gunshots. 

“Stay down!” Her mother screams. Emily is torn. Can she help her mother? Or is she alerting a horde of the undead to their presence in the car? She feels the car shift, like a person bumping up against the exterior. And she just knows it’s a horde. Is her mother right? Should she stay down or get up and help them? If she gets up and the horde realize the three of them are there, she could make a run for it and get out. But what about her 15 year old sister? Nina would stay in the car, frozen by fear. 

“I’m gettin’ outta here.” Agatha declares and throws back the blanket. 

Emily’s head pops up in time to see her older sister throw open the back door and abandon them. Door wide left wide open, some undead chase her older sister. Others see her and move for the door. She rushes forward and grabs the door to pull it closed. Fingers wrap around the door, pulling the other way. Nina joins her and the two of them fight to close the door against the moans. Emily braces a foot on the door frame as she puts all her weight into the door. Her eyes search the road and she sees her mother’s feet poking out from a swarm of feasting bodies. 

It is when she hears Agatha’s scream of pain, she almost accepts their fate. But Nina sobs and Emily sees how hard her younger sister is fighting to keep that door closed. She can’t give up just yet. 

“A little help there Road Kill!” She taunts her little sister. An old nickname from the time Nina was run over by a car that she hates. Nina glares up at her and she sees resolve in her face. “Two, three!” On three they jerk the door that much harder and they hear the click that indicates a locking mechanism has caught. It isn’t closed all the way, but it is something of a success. 

Younger sister grinning up at her, she looks around to take in more information. A bloody mess on the road indicates her father’s remains. She doesn’t want to think about the fact that she never even heard him scream. She wonders if Agatha is still alive. There was one scream. Did she get away? 

Gunshots blast and undead drop away from around the car. She looks back the other way and can just make out men exiting an SUV and a truck as they fire at her attackers. The door on the other side of the rear seats opens to an unattractive man grinning from ear to ear. He pokes his head in and looks them over before standing back. 

“The ferengi sister’s are safe!” He calls back to his friends. 

Ferengi sisters? Who is he to talk? She looks at Nina. Is he teasing them at a time like this? 

“Agatha!” Nina pipes up quickly and points to where their sister took off running. The others walk around inspecting the area and some meet eyes. One nods and two move with purpose into the trees. 

One appearing to be a leader leans into the car. “Looks like we got to you just in the nick of time.” 

“Sir, I think those stains on the road are our parents. I wouldn’t call that the nick of time.” Emily disagrees sourly. 

“For us it is.” A young man she hadn’t noticed snickers causing the morbidly obese man beside him to smack the back of his head. The young man rubs his head but appears unrepentant. 

They both jump when they hear an unearthly cry almost simultaneously with a gunshot blast. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am.” The leader says sincerely, meeting her eyes. “I’m Wade Arnett and we live just down the road. We have a compound we’ve put together with our families. You’re welcome to join us.” 

The two men reappear through the trees where Agatha disappeared to. One looks at Wade and shakes his head. Wade winces. “Agatha was it?” Nina sobs and Emily nods. “Seems she didn’t make it.” 

It was hard news to take in. As much as it angered and hurt that Aggie has always been selfish, it was still hard to take in. All of Emily’s 17 years, she has been her sister. That wasn’t Aggie’s only personality trait. 

The sisters are only marginally aware of the group stripping the car contents for supplies. They don't have much.

Sitting in Wade’s truck between him and the guy who called them the ferengi sisters, Emily can’t remember agreeing to go with them. For the last three weeks, her family had survived when everyone around them dropped like flies. They had been better organized and better communicators. They had their ex-special forces father pulling them through everything. And suddenly it had all ended just like that. She couldn’t say why, but Emily had been lulled into the belief that her family would come out of this untouched. They were gold plated and would come through whatever the world threw at them, shiny as ever. 

Until they didn’t. She couldn’t feel more inadequate than she does right now. Thoughts of being at the mercy of these strangers and fear for herself and her little sister set her on a destructive train of thought. Ill-equipped to cope with her fears at the same time as trying to look at the big picture, she shuts down any long term thinking. Just focusing on what is in front of her right now. As long as she can remember, whenever she looks further down the road to the future, she meets with panic. On rare occasions this panic delivers a clever solution. A way out. More often, it leads down the rabbit hole into a full fledged panic attack. 

Is that what just happened to her father just now? Did he go down that rabbit hole into a panic attack? It wasn’t like her panic attacks. It looked like he fell into an abyss that they didn’t have time to pull him out of. She staves off a shiver from the dark chill that thought causes her. 

Whatever happens, she needs to keep her head. While the bigger picture is more useful, she can’t afford a meltdown in this new world. She can’t think about how many people she just lost in the space of a few short minutes. 

Where are they? She had known where they were when the truck died. But since getting in Wade’s truck, her mind had wandered. Worries about how vulnerable she is in this situation gather like storm clouds and she closes her eyes. She imagines her old bedroom light in their last house. It was like a pendulum as it hung from a rope on her ceiling. She hung it too low on purpose so she could tap it with her foot as she lay on her bed. She would watch it each night dispassionately as it swung back and forth. Slow, predictable and calming. 

With that, her emotions had calmed again. Her eyes moved to Wade as he drove. She estimated he was in his 20’s or early 30’s. Too old for her tastes but an attractive man. He reminded her of an easy going cowboy. A ranch hand in a place that she doubted had any ranches. Still, he wasn’t like the boys in her school. Obviously. For one, he was a grown man and they were boys. Second they went to a Christian Academy. Emily had never gotten used to it. Her parents were new Christians. It hadn’t escaped her notice how quickly they lost their faith after the shit hit the fan. And while Emily had proclaimed Christian under the social pressure of her Christian school, she didn’t have any beliefs as of yet. Thoughts of a god existing had always left her with a twisted, chaotic mess that didn’t make any sense. For or against. 

The truck turns off the paved asphalt onto a dirt road and kicks up dirt behind them. She looks back at her sister in the seat behind her. Nina sits beside a teenage boy trying his hardest to not look like he is interested in her. She is clutching her back to her body, wound tight as she stares out the window. Nina’s fear alleviates some of her own. As though the 15 year old had taken on a burden for her that Emily wouldn’t have to. For unknown reasons, all her life, seeing her sister’s fear had always eased some of her own.

Maybe fear isn’t as contagious as she has heard? 

The dirt road comes up over a hill to a meadow. She could see men, women and children working on building a brick wall for a large compound. Two manned towers are in view and Emily suspects there are more beyond. She doesn’t know much about construction or brick laying, but recognizes gray cement blocks and generators running small cement mixers. It looks like an organized operation. This isn’t like her family. Just surviving. These people are building a fortress. 

Gates resembling barn doors swing open into a compound, even larger than she thought it would be. An intersection at the center of the compound indicates that this was country intersection of five houses and a gas station. The gaping barn behind one house displays the source of the gate doors. But with this many people here… There are more people here than lived in the original five houses. Stress eases from her shoulders. They have been taking people in. Her fears of being kept chained and raped by psychopaths fall away. They are probably good people. Why else would they be taking in so many people? 

Maybe her family wasn’t gold plated. Maybe it’s her or Nina that have all the luck? Thoughts of the two of them lying on the floor of the truck while their parents were killed sink in. She hid, let them die; instead of saving them. If she had really loved them, she would have shown some ingenuity. She would have done something heroic. She doesn’t know what. But a better daughter than her would have done something. 

The truck stops in a dusty driveway outside a farmhouse and Wade grins at her. “Ready to meet the ‘rents?” His grin is friendly, but something in his eyes causes her to pull her knees tightly together. It isn’t malicious or cruel or frightening. But his motives aren’t purely selfless. Emily isn’t the worldly, experienced person she would like to be, but she can sense something is a little off about him. He steps out of the truck and she looks back at Nina. Her sister is getting out of the truck. She doesn’t look terrified anymore but she is still scared. 

The sisters are too close in age, just as Emily and Agatha had been too close in age, for the older one to act as caregiver. There are 19 months difference between Emily and Nina’s age. If Emily attempted to reassure Nina now it would only be taken as an insult. Emily and Agatha were 20 months apart in age but Emily had been tall for her age. More often people assumed she was older than Agatha. The two had always been on equal footing as long as she could remember. Nina was slightly small for age causing Emily moments of protectiveness. But overall, the three sisters saw each other as equals. Feeling more akin to triplets than older and younger. Agatha refused to play big sister after she couldn’t defeat Emily in a fair fight anymore. Which had started very young. And Nina had witnessed the equality between the two of them and demanded it for herself. It had always worked. 

Except, seeing Nina’s eyes getting out of the truck, Emily had one of those few moments when she wished she could be the big sister and do something reassuring without insulting her. 

Wade and the teenage boy led them up the steps, over the porch and into the house. Nina paused at the threshold and stared warily. “Keep it moving Road Kill.” Emily whispered in the girl’s ear as she nudged past her. She didn’t have to look back to know Nina was glaring at her back. Better to have Nina annoyed with her than have her freezing up on them. 

They follow Wade through a living room and back into a kitchen. There an older woman, not yet elderly but at least 20 years older than Wade was busy chopping vegetables. “You find more grain, Wade?” 

Wade has a small smile when he clears his throat and leans back against the kitchen wall. 

The woman looks up and her eyes fall on the sisters. A brief look of appraisal switches back to Wade. “That what you’re lookin’ self -satisfied about boy? Go on. Tell Don and I’ll get Nancy to settle them in.” 

“Mom…” Wade looks like a petulant little boy. 

His mother raises an eyebrow. “It’s a sight better than bread, but I think your hormones got the better of you. Now go on.” 

Smirking, Wade wriggles his eyebrows at Emily and walks out. In the road and in the truck, he had appeared to be a strong, intelligent leader. In this woman’s kitchen, he seems more like a man-child. 

“Hormones?” The question escapes her before she thinks about it. 

The woman’s face softens and Emily is filled with warmth. “I’m Marilyn! That’s my son Wade. You’ll have to forgive me. While I’m happy to see the two of you alive, we’re going to have a food shortage this time next year if we don’t fill our stores for the winter. We won’t have a grain harvest going until next year. We hadn’t farmed preparing for… well.” 

Marilyn seems really nice. Emily thinks she is going to like her, but the roller coaster of emotions isn’t stopping. How is she happy to see the sisters if they are facing a food shortage issue? “Sorry to impose on you, ma’am.”

“Take a seat. I’ll get you some clean water.” The girls take a seat at the kitchen table with their backpacks while Marilyn fetches water. "Our group are mostly related to each other. When it all went to hell, family from out of state all showed up. Three of the houses are owned by elderly couples who aren't family. Well, were. Two died when they couldn’t get their meds. With everyone related, married or past their prime, Wade and a few young men have expressed disappointment at the lack of available ladies. I’m afraid you’ll be overwhelmed with eligible bachelors.” 

It is hard to tell if Marilyn is dismayed or amused by the last problem. 

What else is in store for them here?


	2. Don't Always Get What You Want

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting to know the Arnett's, Emily begins to think there was more to her gut feelings about Wade than she thought. *Trigger warning*

It only takes a couple of days for Emily to understand Marilyn’s mixed emotions. She winces as she hears a fist connect with a cheekbone. She stands up from the bonfire and turns away. Nina is already five steps ahead of her heading into the farmhouse. The last two days the Arnett’s have proven to be good hosts. They’re settling into chores and learning farming. They share a bedroom in the attic reached by a pull down staircase ladder that they pull out. The only way she could have felt safer was if her father were still with her. Aside from Marilyn and Wade; the house contains Janet and Cole and their kids, and Nancy and Stuart and their kids. The two families aren’t nearly as friendly as the Arnett’s and keep their distance from Emily and Nina.

While the Arnett’s are related, they weren’t kidding when they said these people were from out of state. Family that only meet for weddings and christenings and funerals. They aren’t a close knit group and the presence of the sisters causes constant fighting between young men regardless of their interest or lack thereof. It isn’t so bad with Nina. She’s clearly underage and off limits to the worst offenders. It is the guys in their late teens to early 20’s that are proving to be the most problematic. Emily learns from Marilyn that Don is a prepper, someone that was stock piling weapons, food and making plans for an apocalypse. She also comes to realize this family has a disproportionate number of boys near her age than girls. She has tried to make friends with the girls but they are forever being herded away from her. She isn't sure what it is all about but she can sense that they see her as an interloper and a trouble maker. The fight at the bonfire has likely confirmed this prejudice. 

When she arrives in the attic, Nina stops pacing to look her in the eye. “You can’t play with them like this.” 

“Play with them?” Emily is shocked to hear the accusation. 

“I don’t mean it like you’ve been flirting with them. But you need to choose one of them. Even if it’s just for show. Or go for one of the girls. But for the love of God, do something!” 

“Do what? I’m not interested in any of them.” 

“Oh come on. I remember you used to date. Don’t pull innocent with me now.” 

Emily refuses to blush. She went through a series of boyfriends as a freshman and sophomore. Nothing happened but plenty of people assumed she had sex with them. She hadn’t known before this moment that her own sister thought the same thing. She clenches her fists and takes deep breaths to control her breathing. There isn’t a chance in hell she is about to admit that she is a virgin. It’s not as though she is innocent. Between heavy petting and one boyfriend going down on her in hopes of convincing her to have sex with him and she isn’t exactly feeling inexperienced. 

“I’m sorry.” Nina sighs. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just hard to watch.” 

“Should we leave?”

The alarmed look on her sister’s face expressly determines that isn’t in their list of options. Emily herself didn't consider it as a realistic option but wanted to express her distaste for the suggestion that she should actually start playing one of the boys. Because 'pretending' to be with a teenage boy is playing him. The very thing Nina just accused her of doing. 

“You don’t have to leave.” A voice pipes in from the pull up staircase ladder Emily failed to pull back up after her. Fuck. Wade’s heavy footsteps move up the ladder. They watch as he enters the attic with it’s low headroom. She hadn’t noticed the size of him before. A little over 6 foot tall, with broad shoulders, he doesn’t fit the room. At 5’1” the space fits petite Nina nicely. 5’8” tall Emily has to watch head for some rafter’s. But Wade resembles Gandalf in a hobbit cottage. Seeing him like that somehow makes him less imposing. Less intimidating. It’s disarmingly amusing. 

“We can just take you off the market. We can fake it.” He suggests. 

“I don’t mean any offense, sir. But there’s a big age difference here.” Emily speaks quietly. “Who’s gonna believe it?” 

Wade looks genuinely hurt. “First, stop sir’ing me and second: Why not?” 

Is he dense? “May I speak freely?” He nods. “Why would I be interested in a 30 year old man and what would a 30 year old man want with a kid?” 

Wade and Nina exchange a look. 

“What?” 

“Isaiah’s almost 40 and he’s plenty interested.” Nina points out. 

“Eww!" She feels physically sick at the insinuation. Isaiah has poor hygiene. "Nina, no. Don’t point that out to me. I was better off not knowing.” Emily covers her eyes with a hand.

Wade sighs and takes a seat on her bed beside her. “I don’t think you get it. A lot of these guys are scared they’re gonna be alone ‘til kingdom come. We get the feelin’ that’s still a long ways away. There aren’t gonna be any singles meet n’ greets comin’ up. You feel me?”

“What about you, sir? Why aren’t you worried?” 

He laughs and looks away. “I said don’t call me sir. And yeah, I’m a little worried. But I’m 28. Two of you are still kids and no offense but you’re right. I’m not too interested in little girls. Maybe when you grow up some. We’ve got time and I still think there’re women out there for me.” He grins at them but Emily can't shake the feeling that he practiced this. “Amazonian princesses that could kick my ass.” Except that didn't sound practiced. Why is she always so suspicious? This man is offering to help her. Maybe if she was tied down to someone in this compound they would start seeing her as one of them and they would stop treating her like a leper. 

She makes a conscious effort to not call him sir. “You never thought about us that way?” 

He cringes and laughs awkwardly. “You know how many single young women we’ve seen in the last 3 weeks?” They both shake their heads. “One and she’d already been bit. Mostly found men out there and a few women already hitched to those wagons. So I admit.” He tips his head to one side. “The thought had crossed my mind. But I’ve got time. Things’ll get better. Just give it time.” The last part he says with such absolute confidence, she is inclined to believe him. Or that is what she wants to hear. 

Emily watches her sister accept his answer easily enough. But can she?

He stands up and heads for the ladder. Before leaving, he looks at her. “Give it a little time to think about. I’m just worried Isaiah’s gonna push for something more drastic.”

“I didn’t think he has any authority around here, sir.” 

“He don’t.” Wade looks more serious now. “But he sure breeds discontent and he can force action to take place.” 

He leaves and pushes the stairs up to them. Nina pulls it the rest of the way up. Most of the time, Emily doesn’t have a clue how Wade ended up in charge. Then there are those rare moments of maturity she sees from him and she can see potential in him. The truth is Marilyn is in charge around here. Wade is her eyes, ears and enforcer. Good looks and charm aside, he served in the military before he came home after his father died. He isn’t perfect by a long shot. But he could be someone she can trust. 

She gets off her bed and unlatches the ladder. 

“Wade!”

There is a pause, then the sound of his heavy footsteps far below. “Yeah?” His face pops into view. 

“I’ll do it.” 

“Do it?” He teases. 

Janet passes him in the hall and she realizes he had been trying to warn her they aren't alone. She looks at him meaningfully. “I’ll go out with you.” She doesn’t miss the skepticism on Janet’s face. She comes further down the ladder until they are face to face. 

His two hands gently cup her face and pull her in for a kiss. She squeaks. 

“Wade.” Janet snaps. Everything about her body language screams disapproval. This doesn't look to be working as well as Emily thought it would. Wasn't this supposed to be met with approval? She hasn't calculated this as well as she hoped. 

He turns an arrogant smile in Janet's direction. “My lovely aunt. Is there a problem?” 

“She’s a child.” 

“Janet.” Marilyn calls from her bedroom. Janet looks alarmed before looking away quickly. “Why don’t we go have a little talk?” Janet blanches but joins Marilyn. 

When Emily arrived at the kitchen table, things were quieter than usual. As most mornings, Wade and the younger men going out scavenging were finishing up breakfast. First up, first fed and first out the door was the logic Emily had heard from Marilyn. Some of their eyes shifted her way, but from the moment Wade greeted her, they looked away. 

“Baby, you’re up!” He stood up from the bench at the kitchen table and pulled her to him by the back of the neck. With an intimate familiarity that doesn't exist between them, he kisses her. His other hand roams over her abdomen. She gets the sense that he is putting on a show to mark his territory. She didn't think when he said they would fake a relationship, he would put on such a thorough show. As he pulls away, he smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He is telling her something but she already understands what he is doing. 

“How’d you sleep?” He asks. She tries not to sound awkward, even as she feels eavesdroppers all around them. 

“Like a log. You?” She catches herself before she calls him sir. Years of her parents rules make her want to call anyone she views as an authority Sir or Ma’am. It feels unnatural to address him any other way. They make small talk for a little while before Wade heads out with the guys. 

Instead of the arrangement easing her tension, Emily experiences a deep sense of foreboding taking hold. Yes, they are supposed to be putting on a show, but it she feels like Wade is going too far with the public display of affection. 

She spends the day with Nina and Marilyn in the kitchen. The older woman as usual keeps them close. While there is a certain amount of charity coming from the woman, Emily had thought she would be taken off leash or at least given a longer leash now that she isn't considered single. 

“Your Daddy ever teach you anything useful?” Marilyn asks while they make dinner. 

The sisters share a look. It doesn't escape Emily's notice that no one else is in the house right now. “How to shoot a gun and how to clean it, Ma’am. But we didn’t do a lot of it. And er… we can ride dirt bikes.”

“So you don’t have any hard skills? No survival? You can’t farm, no engineering, no nursing… you can’t contribute as equals.”

As equals? This line of logic is disheartening. “I suppose not, Ma’am.” 

Marilyn has a patronizing expression that worries Emily. Where did the woman with the kindly smile go? “It’s not an attack on your value honey. You have your looks and your youth. Those are things our compound can use. I just hoped I could sell your usefulness to my brother on other merits.” 

Her brother? Don hasn’t said two words to her. Emily was under the impression he was perfectly indifferent to her. And what does it matter what Don thinks? Everything she has seen has given her the impression that Wade's in charge. 

“Can I ask why, Ma’am?” She looks at Nina and sees her sister has stopped working to listen. 

“‘Fraid he sees you as an outsider. He said until you share blood with us, he don’t think you can be trusted.” 

"Blood? How can I share blood? I was born from a different family.”

“Mmmm.” Marilyn responds noncommittally. “Can you cut onions without making yourself cry?” 

What? “Um.. yes Ma’am. Yeah I can do that.” She moves quickly to get through the onions. Instead of cementing her place in this compounding, fake dating Wade seems to have created a more uncertain future for her. 

\--------------------------

“ I have a surprise for you.” Two days passed uneventfully, aside from Wade putting on his public shows of affection and his wandering hands. He is a better actor than she would have guessed. This day, he wraps his arms around from behind Emily as she washes dishes. He presses a kiss to her temple and she notes they don’t have an audience. Aside from his mother and her sister. She pulls away but he holds her tighter to him. 

“What’s that, Sir?” 

“Momma? I’m stealing your dishwasher.” 

Hands still soaking wet, he whirls her around and up into his arms. Her squeal of surprise is met with laughter as he strides out of the kitchen and into the back yard. There stands a caravan. 

“Our new home, until I can build you one.”

Her blood runs cold. “I thought this was a temporary arrangement until-” 

“Yeah, well I thought I was going to be runnin’ a successful law firm in five years time. Plans change. We adapt or die.” He snaps. 

“Si- Wade?” He has never mentioned his previous plans to her before. And what motivated this? 

He deposits her on the floor of the caravan and closes the door behind them. She takes in the torn expression on his face. “Whatever happens, know that I’m doing everything I can to to keep you with us and alive.” 

“Wade, you’re scaring me.” 

He drags a hand through his hair. “Figured as much. There’s a lot goin’ on that you don’t know about, hon’.” 

“Well, then tell me about it.” 

He smiles and reaches for her face. She pulls away but in the cramped space her the back of her legs hit the bench seat. His palm cups her cheek, unperturbed by her response. 

“You’re so beautiful. You have no idea.” 

Emily has a decent idea where he is taking this. “I need you to tell me why the plans changed.” 

“Shhh… it’s okay. I’m gonna take care of this okay? I won’t let Don send you anywhere.” Her stomach drops as she wonders how close the sisters are to being kicked out for Wade to take these measures. He closes his eyes and leans in to kiss her. 

Like other kisses, it’s just two lips meeting. She watches his face and feels his arms wrap around her. It isn’t the fumbling, unpracticed moves of previous boyfriends. Because she can feel her body mildly responding to him. Something feels wrong about this. She can’t decide how to respond. Make him stop? What if it feels wrong because he doesn’t really want to do this? What if he really is just trying to keep her in compound? What if this was his plan all along? What will he do if she refuses him? He is bigger and stronger and there isn't a police force and Dad isn't coming to save her. 

Still holding her in his arms, he leads her the short distance to the queen bed just past the tiny bathroom. 

She freezes as he begins removing articles of clothing from her body. 

“It’s okay, I’ve got this. I’ll take care of everything.” He croons gently. “No one’s sending you anywhere. I won’t let them.” 

The thought of being sent out there with Nina provokes thoughts she has been avoiding. Her father couldn’t hold them together. Or maybe he didn’t want to? She had always thought that for all hr parents faults they loved her. But did her father give up because he didn’t think they were worth it? 

Wade strips her of even her underwear before he maneuvers her to lie back on the bed. Clenching her hands at her sides, she watches as he pulls his shirt up over his head. He doesn’t have the strong but willowy limbs of her ex-boyfriends. She sees the powerful build of a fully grown man and feels her body buzz with fear. If she told him to stop, would he? If she screamed for help, would someone come to stop him? 

“Shh-shh-shhhh…” he sits down and strokes his hands up her unshaven legs. She considers the possibility that if she is lucky, hairy legs will put him off. But his eyes stay focused on hers. “You’re safe. We’re safe.” He undoes his belt buckle and takes his pants down. 

She averts her eyes. She hasn’t looked directly at a penis before. She has seen dick photos sent to her. She has felt them through jeans and swim shorts. But she was never ready to go any further than that. In person isn't something she has prepared herself for. If she demands he stops and he stops, will he retaliate? Kick her out? 

As he climbs onto the bed, he holds her in his stare. It’s then that she realizes he is treating her like a nervous horse. She drags her eyes up to the ceiling as he straddles her legs. But he leans over her and blocks her view. 

This is moving along so much faster than she would have imagined. She has had make out sessions that lasted over an hour. What happened to foreplay? And she still isn’t clear on why this has any impact on whether she and her sister have to go. So much of the time she feels like an adult. But moments like these she feels ill-equipped to deal with life. She believes the truth is staring her in the face, but she doesn’t know what she is looking at. 

The man peppers light kisses down her neck and she shivers in response. He lowers his nude body so that she can feel his erection against her bare skin. This is really happening and she still doesn’t know what to do about it. So far, her indecision is being taken as a yes. His wet mouth kisses and suckles behind her ear and he rubs his hips against her. She can feel her body stir beneath him. Even with him bracing much of his weight on one arm, he is really heavy. 

Shifting his weight to one side, he slips his hand between her thighs and then wedges himself between her thighs. Her breathing starts to come in short, frightened pants. “I can’t do this.”

“Shh-shhh. It’s okay. I’m not asking you to do anything.” He kisses her gently on the lips. This close, she can see he has minor freckles across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose under his tan. His eyes are more grey than blue and he doesn’t have any of the typical yellow speckling she remembers seeing in her own blue eyes.

Seated at the apex of her thighs, Wade kisses her neck and throat while rolling his body against hers. His erection strokes her clitoris. Heat pools low in her belly and it starts to become easy to just go with the flow. Her legs naturally open wider to him and her knees draw up either side of his hips. Where he is stroking her with his length, she feels herself dampens. 

“Wade?” She doesn’t know what she’s asking him. 

“That’s it,” he whispers and begins kissing her. Her attention is occupied with his tongue exploring her mouth when she feels pressure against her folds. He swallows her cry in a kiss. Lined up, he firmly thrusts inside her. Acute pain results in her trying to jerk away from him. But there isn’t anywhere to go while pressed back into the mattress. He groans into her mouth and her own muffled yell competes. 

While he holds still, her mind wrestles with what she had just gone along with until this point. His penis is inside her. She can feel the thick, impossible pressure filling her. Not that she didn’t know how this worked, but the reality is more than she had braced herself for. The experience is raw and real. 

He pulls out of her a few inches and thrusts back into her further. It is uncomfortable but he finally pulls his mouth from hers. “Wade? I don’t-” he begins thrusting into her in a steady rhythm. He seats his pelvis deeper against hers and begins stimulating her clitoris again. Combined with the sensation of being filled deep inside, her body shudders under him. “Ughh… I don’t wanna do this.” 

“Oh God!” He mutters and rises up, locking his elbows with his hands holding his upper body up. His hips begin snapping up against her hard and fast. Her body races toward an orgasm, a familiar sensation from her own private experiences. But there’s a part of her that feels so incredibly used. He brings his body back down against hers and slows down. “That’ll end it too fast.”

“Wade, can we stop?” 

“It’ll be good. You’ll see.” 

“I don’t want to get pregnant.” The two of them are panting as he keeps moving. He reminds her again of the man-child as she watches him above her. 

“You get pregnant and Don’ll have to let you stay. You’ll be family.” 

Her stomach drops and her mind reels. That is what Marilyn was talking about with sharing blood? Did Marilyn put him up to this? 

He rests on one elbow and brings a hand to breast. His body contorts to bring his mouth to her nipple. Keeping pace, he swirls his tongue around her nipple and attentively massages. The sensation drags her from her thoughts. Pleasure ripples through her. She is getting close.

“That’s it, hon'. Feels good don’t it?” His palm moves to her lower abdomen and down her hip and pulls her knee up higher. “Fuck, I need to come now, baby.” His pace picks up seemingly impossibly fast. She hears him grunting repeatedly in her ear. His body jerks and his movements are spastic. Emily hadn’t thought she could feel fuller than she did with him inside her until one of his movements fills her with more pressure. Wade’s body collapses on her, his hips still rocking slightly. It is hard to breathe under his body weight. She can feel his heartbeat pounding against her chest. 

She can't believe that they just had sex. His sweaty body breathes heavily on her. Once he becomes soft, slips out of her and she feels sticky slickness slip out from her most intimate place. A list of possible repercussions rolls through her thoughts. Tears fill her eyes. He gets off her and maneuvers to spoon around her. One hand strokes a breast and her slightly curved belly. “That was a first for me too.” He whispers. She is confused for a minute. “Never wanted a girl getting knocked up and causing problems for me. First time without a condom. You’ll see, we’ll make this work.” He kisses the top of her head. 

It doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep. She climbs out of bed and curls up in a naked ball on the floor and cries. Deep wracking cries. What just happened? She doesn’t have words for it. She didn’t fight him. She went along with it. He didn't really hurt her, so why does she hurt so much? Time passes and she becomes aware that she is cold. Not knowing what to do, she climbs back into bed. 

“Sweet Jesus you’re cold. Come here.” He mutters sleepily and pulls her against his sweaty chest. Somehow, the summer heat isn’t reaching her.


	3. Security is an Illusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily needs to start figuring out what is really happening in the compound.

“You okay?” Nina asks at breakfast. 

Emily looks at Marilyn’s back and shakes her head. She doesn’t want to talk about it.

Nina looks confused. Emily can tell her sister doesn’t know if she is quietly telling her she’s not okay or brushing her off. It is both. But how can she talk to her little sister about this? She surmises that Nina is aware she didn't go back to their room last night. What else has Nina figured out? She feels as isolated as being on a deserted island. She doesn’t want to be tied to Wade for life. But she doesn't see anyway out of this.

“Ma’am?” The woman looks her way. “I’m not feeling so well. Mind if I go lay down?”

“In the camper? ‘Course! It’s your honeymoon.” Marilyn beams. Did she hear the part where Emily said she doesn't feel well?

“Honeymoon?” Nina asks and exclaims at once. 

Emily is surprised but she stands up and heads to the caravan. She isn't up for Nina's scrutiny or arguing with Marilyn that she didn't get married. She finds Wade at the table in the caravan cleaning guns. 

“Honeymoon?”

“Yeah, Momma and Don declared us married after last night.” He grins. “Everyone heard you screamin’ my name. Oh Wade!” He says in a high pitched breathless cry. 

Embarrassed, she walks past him and curls up on the bed. He follows her into the bedroom and starts undressing. 

“What’re you doing?” She is shocked by his course of action. 

“You’re slow to catch on, aren’t you?” He jokes, but she doesn't see any humour in it.

“I don’t want to. We keep this up and I'll get pregnant.” She is getting better at not calling him Sir. She isn’t sure that is a good thing. It feels like she’s losing a piece of her parents. 

He has made short work of his clothes. No one seems to undress as fast as this man. “That’s the idea.” He kneels on the bed and reaches for her. She pulls away. 

“Not my idea.” 

Anger crosses his face instantly. “You turn into a whore that quickly? All those girls that would fuck me for my family's money? Gold digger!” 

It is a frightening side of the dark blonde man she hasn’t seen before. He grabs her by the arm in a tight clasp. “Wade.” Hearing her voice, he remembers himself and backs off. 

“Look, just get in the damn bed. I’ve already settled everything. We’re both attractive people. You’re a better match than Don’s girl.” 

“Don’s girl?”

He seems to remember himself, then pauses thoughtfully looking at her. “You know you could be pregnant already? You'll need me.” She doesn’t answer him. Instead, she waits for a real answer. He obliges. “Don brought his step-daughter. She’s fat, ugly and older than me.” He goes into a long story but Emily gets lost in her own thoughts. 

She is beginning to realize that her and her sister have been thoroughly isolated from the rest of the group. Marilyn and Wade restrict their access to information. She thought Wade and Marilyn and Wade were in control because that is what they wanted her to think. Don must be the one who is really in charge. 

When he takes her to bed, she feels like she has already lost. At first, she tries to block him out. But she the moment her body starts responding to his touch, she is jerked into the present. He is too old for her and a liar and his mother is likely his puppet master. Shouldn't she be so disgusted by him that her body wouldn't respond to his touch? What is wrong with her? Is she as twisted as him? His muscles move visibly below his bare skin as he explores her curves and suckles at her breasts. She dislikes herself for being able to see he is attractively well built. 

When he enters her, she isn’t quite ready. She doesn’t want to admit it hurts. Instead, she stares at the ceiling listening to him panting in her ear. On top of her, he blocks out all view of the room. He picks up speed and barrels toward reaching pleasure. The force of his thrusts becoming more jarring than she can try to block out. The mattress has bottomed out and she can feel his pelvic bone bruising her own. One thrust hurts so much it knocks the breath out of her.

“Wade…” she whines and tries maneuvering out from under him when he calls out her name. His motions stutter out of rhythm and his grinds up inside of her. She waits. His body shudders and she feels pressure deeper still inside her. His motions finally stop and she shoves at him to slide out from underneath. 

“Emmy? Are you okay?” 

She slams the tiny bathroom door behind her before he can ask more questions. That was possibly the most painful experience of her life. Emily looks in the mirror at her tear strewn face. “I have to get outta here.” She whispers to the girl in the mirror. What she is doing right now isn't working. She has a lot of growing up to do and not much time to do it in.

\----------------------------------------

Casey, Don’s step-daughter turns out to be a lovely woman. Emily pauses bringing water out to the vegetable patch to watch Casey weeding. The woman has a beautiful mane of curly, strawberry blonde hair. She could stand to lose 30 lbs or so, but there isn’t anything wrong with her in Emily’s opinion. Casey is easily as attractive as Wade. The two are close in age. And Casey is always trying to make things better for everyone. In comparison, Emily feels inept, stupid and selfish. That Wade would choose her over Casey doesn’t make any sense to her. 

It has been two months since her parents died and the sisters moved to the compound. Over a month since Wade started having sex with her. She had a period last week, to Marilyn’s disappointment. But he seemed optimistic that it was “only a matter of time.” 

In the meanwhile, Emily has been easing her way into the group. She has come to realize that it isn’t Wade isolating her so much as Marilyn. Wade is in the most literal sense a tool in Marilyn’s hands. To her surprise, when she shared this observation with Nina, her little sister had been more shocked that it took Emily so long to see it. Nina was always more sensitive to the meaning behind social interactions. Emily enjoyed lone physical activities and reading. She wishes she were more social but recognizes that she is too selfish to listen as closely to what people are saying as she should. Does she even have any positive attributes? Any compliments have always been restricted to her looks. To watch someone like Casey, with the whole package mostly fills Emily with sadness. She'll never be Casey. 

“Thirsty, Ma’am?” She asks Casey. The woman looks up and smiles at her. Emily assumes that is a yes and hands the metal canteen to her. She watches closely as the woman drinks from the canteen. She wants to make conversation but her nerves are getting the better of her. This is the first time the two of them have been alone together. And then Emily blurts out this gem. “Do you have any birth control?” 

Casey chokes and splutters on the water she is drinking. 

“I’m sorry, Ma’am! Are you okay?” 

Casey laughs between coughs and looks up at her. “I’m… I’m fine.” She caps the canteen. “I wasn’t ready for that question is all. Um… I don’t but I think I can get you some.”

Emily blushes as she takes in how random her question was. “I didn’t know what to say and just blurted out the first thing on my mind. I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s okay. I actually was wondering if you were as keen to have a baby as Marilyn is to have grandbabies. She’s made her feeling’s well known on it. I thought about asking you but your guard dog is always on you.” 

“Guard dog, Ma’am?”

“It's just Casey. No need to Ma'am me. And I mean Marilyn. Any time we try to talk to you she has you busy with something. Dad said to leave it be. You’re…” she hesitates. “Not one of us. And while she’s focused on you, we can focus on food production, medicine and security.” 

“She causes a lot of problems around here?” This is all news to her. 

Laughing, Casey opens the canteen and takes another sip. “You have no idea. She wants Wade in charge and he could be if she weren’t pulling his strings. Between you and me, until he learns to grow a pair and stand up to her, he’ll only be in charge of scavenging missions and hunting.” 

This is the most information she has received at once from someone outside of Marilyn and Wade since she got here. 

“Emily!” Marilyn yells from the backdoor of the farmhouse. 

Giving Casey a quick smile, Emily accepts the canteen. Casey doesn’t let go at first. Instead she catches Emily’s eyes and says quietly: “It was wrong of us to leave you girls at her mercy. She really was being a holy terror and we just don’t know you. I’ll get you some birth control. It’s the least I can do.” 

She nods gratefully and runs back to the farmhouse. 

“What did she say to you?” Marilyn asks sweetly. 

“Tomatoes are ready early and asked if we had any sugar left, Ma’am.” Lies. All lies. She hopes Marilyn doesn’t know the truth about either. 

“Well, can you peel potatoes for us?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

Marilyn looks out the window. “Storms comin’.”

That night, she is brushing her teeth when she feels the caravan dip with the weight of Wade entering. The sound of his heavy footsteps as he crosses to unbuckle his holster confirms who it is. She knows it well by now. The sound of rain pelting the roof echos loudly. Every night Wade comes in while most of the men and a few women take turns guarding the watch towers. She wonders why it never seems to be Wade’s turn to take watch. 

Emily spits toothpaste in the sink and pours water from her bottle to rinse the brush and sink basin. 

“Wade? We need to talk.” She decides it is time that as his wife, she act like an equal. Spurred by Casey’s confidence she is going to wield her own will and opinion. 

The man looks surprised and tired but game for a conversation. He takes a seat on the kitchen bench seat and unlaces his muddy combat boots. She sees the mess he has left in his wake. It reminds her of when she was a little kid. Her father would sit down on the couch and she would scamper over and undo his combat boots and then practice tying his shoelaces while he watched television. The mess can wait. She’ll deal with it in the morning. Of course, she'll regret that later.

Taking a seat across from him, she splays her hands on the table. “I’m 17 years old. I’m not ready to have kids.” 

His face darkens. The rain picks up harder outside. She is grateful that at the very least the lightning and thunder have already passed. Wade is intimidating enough right now as it is. That would add a level of creepy to it. 

“Who you be’n talkin’ to?” 

She stares down at the table. In five words, he has made her feel tiny.

“What good are you to me if you don’t want kids?” 

Emily sinks down in her seat. His words feel unfair, but they have alluded before to the view that she is worthless to them as anything but his breeder. A sullen part of her resents his words but a larger part is hurt. 

He stands up and starts pacing in front of the table. “You live in my home, on my land, eat my food, live under my protection.” He pauses his rant to get in her face. “That’s all me. I’m doing this for you. Tomorrow, I’m going out leading a scavenging party. Today I led a small hunting party. Brought back a buck. I bring back meds, medical equipment, diapers.” He jabs his thumb at his chest. “Me. I risk my life for you every day. I do it,” he kneels down in front of her and takes her hands in his. His tone softens. “I do it… knowing you’re home. Safe an’ sound.” He presses his hand against her belly. “If I don’t make it back, there’s a chance a part o’ me is gonna live on. I chose you for this. Not Casey. Not your sister. Not the next woman we find on the road. You.” He huffs and stands up. 

Watching, wary that his mood could turn dark again, she takes slow even breaths. Emily wonders at how he sees her position as something she should feel honored to be given. 

“I don’t have a year to wait for you to be ready to be a mother, Emily. You want out, you wanna leave our safe compound, you gotta tell me now.” 

Leave? Leave! No. They can’t leave. Fear grips her. Last time she had her father. She can’t imagine life out there without his protection ending any better than her last experience outside. “What if Don let’s me stay? Can’t I talk to him?” 

“Pffft!” He shakes his head, holding her gaze. “You’re not family without a baby. It’s just me. I’m all that’s keepin’ the two of you here. You wanna stay here? You need me. And sweetheart, I need you. If you left, out there by yourself… hell it would tear me up inside. Please don’t do that to me.” 

He’s lying. 

But he might not be. She doesn’t know these people. These people haven’t said much about a teenage girl marrying a grown man. She doesn’t know their beliefs. They seem a little conservative. Can she risk finding out for herself whether Don will let her stay? If she loses good standing with Wade and Don rejects her, where does that leave her and Nina? She can’t risk it. She just doesn’t have the stomach for that level of risk taking. 

Emily nods her head as tears well up. No, she can’t. 

“We’re gonna keep working on our family?” She hates the satisfied look on Wade's face. 

She nods again. 

He laughs with joy and pulls her in for a kiss. When he takes her to bed, she observes with a clinical detachment. Instead of becoming desensitized, her body is becoming more responsive with the familiarity of his touch. Even driving her to orgasm sometimes. Which is fine by her. When she comes, he climaxes faster and she goes to sleep sooner. 

\-----------------------------------------------

“They expired two months ago.” It takes a moment for Emily to process what she just read on the box. This isn’t what she expected. It has taken two whole weeks for Casey to get back to her with this box. During that time, he hasn’t let up. With few exceptions, Wade wants sex every day. The day he had a close call with a walker he came back and went several times; desperately confirming to himself that he was still alive and in one piece. At least that was what Emily surmised, he didn’t say two words. “Ma’am, I was counting on you to get me birth control.” 

“Dave’s a pharmacist. He said these ones should still work for a year past their expiry date.” Casey explains.

That is a relief to hear. But what about ten months from now? “Dave doesn’t know how to make anymore pills, does he?” She asks sadly. 

Casey is sympathetic. “You make a good couple.” Emily feels cold inside hearing that. “Wait… are you? You are together?”

How does Emily answer that? She doesn't. “Thanks for the pills. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, I guess I had unrealistic expectations.” She moves to walk away when Casey catches her arm. 

“You can talk to me. You know that right?” The woman’s eyes search hers. 

“Thanks.” Emily knows her smile is plastic but can’t force a better one right now. Casey is Don's step-daughter. Doesn’t mean she shares her thinking with Don. 

“One more thing.” She pulls out a box. “If you’re already pregnant, those won’t do anythin’.” 

Emily only needs to glance at the box to see it’s a pregnancy test. She feels like this little chat is becoming a roller coaster ride that will make her vomit. She snatches the box and runs back to the house. She can’t be gone too long before Marilyn will notice. 

As she puts the bottle of pills and box in her pockets a hand clamps down on her shoulder and spins her around. Emily screams in alarm. 

“Whoa! Emmy, it’s me!” Nina stares back at her in alarm. 

People look at them and Emily and Nina laugh, waving them off. 

“Jumpy much?” Nina scowls but she only shrugs in response. “Why are you avoiding me? Ever since you hitched up with Wade you rarely talk to me.” 

“I do talk to you.” 

Nina looks hurt by her words. “Asking for more vinegar when you’re canning isn’t talking to me.”

Emily can feel her own face fall. “You’re right.” She has been avoiding her. “How’ve you be’n?” 

Her sister laughs. “Oh no, you’re not gonna pretend it’s nothing. It’s not nothing. It’s something. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing.” She can hear how defensive she sounds to herself. 

Nina’s eyes narrow. Her hand snatches the box Emily hadn’t realized was still in her hand. 

“Nina!” 

The younger girl sees what it is and her eyebrows jump high on her forehead. “I should’a known. I’ve walked past your love shack and heard the two of you at it enough times.” 

She blushes and looks away. 

“You think you’re pregnant?” 

This isn’t a conversation Emily wants to be having with her sister. They’re close in some ways, but she doesn’t consider them this close. It’s not like how Nina and Agatha would talk about their periods, to Emily’s horror. “Nina.” She whines. 

The younger girls’ hands go to her hips. “You don’t get to cut me out of your life. This is big. I could be an aunt.” 

Emily sighs. “No symptoms or anything like that. Casey just thought the way he’s been goin’ at it, I should be checking.” 

“He’s been going at it?” Nina laughs. “It takes two and anyone standing outside your caravan can hear that you’re not just lying back and thinking of England.” 

“Shhh!” Anger rears up in her. “Is this your way of punishing me for not hanging out with you? Because you’ve thoroughly embarrassed me. I get it, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t hang out with you sooner.” 

Nina sighs. “You’re right. I might be gettin’ back at you a little. I don’t have anyone to talk to. And a sort of common law marriage is a big deal. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about it before you did it.”

Unable to meet her eyes, she stares at the ground and shrugs. “It was a spare of the moment kinda thing. I didn’t know we were gonna do that.”

“I guess-”

“Girls!” Marilyn’s voice cracks across the field. “Need your help in here!” She goes back inside and the girls scurry back to the house. 

\-------------------------------------------------

9 days. Her period was due 9 days ago. She should have taken the test already but every time she ends up staring at it for so long she psych’s herself out. 

*Bang! Bang! Bang!* “Would ya take the damn test already?” Wade nearly causes her to jump out of her skin when he knocks on the camper’s tiny bathroom door. 

“Y-yes, Sir,” she has read the instructions a number of times before. She gets on with pulling the stick out and peeing on it. Emily doesn’t know what she expecting, but it is easier than she thought it would be. 

When she see’s the result, her knees feel like jello and her hand slaps over her mouth to cover her sob. Wade mustn’t hear that. He needs to think she has been trying to get pregnant right with him.

“So what does it say? Are you pregnant?” Wade asks through the door. 

It takes a lot of work to calm down. She can’t fall apart right now. She has a role to play. She threw her chips in with Wade, now she’s fully committed to it, she has to see it through. It feels as though someone just called her bluff. A part of her hadn’t been able to imagine herself getting pregnant. The theoretical is becoming real. Intellectually she had understood but it was too large a concept to fully grasp in any meaningful way. Now it has happened, the gravity of it is so much more than she could have guessed. 

She can’t be thinking this way. She has to pull herself together now. She draws the door back where Wade is waiting. She hands him the stick. “I’m pregnant.” She tries to smile. 

He crows loudly and pulls her into his arms. She lets him wrap her legs around his waist and spin her round on the spot in the crowded space. “Your beauty, my brains!” He kisses her for so long she becomes dizzy from lack of oxygen. “I’ll be right back. Hold on. I gotta tell Momma!” He takes off running. She hears him laughing wildly as he runs into the farm house. 

“What’ve I done?” She thinks about the world she last saw beyond the completed compound walls. It is Night of the Living Dead out there and she has decided to have a baby in the middle of it. The contents of her stomach rush up and she has to hurry to the toilet to throw up inside of it in time. 

In her head she can hear her father whenever he was pissed off with her. “You stupid bitch! I can’t believe you did that!” He said that about the time she dropped a tv out of her bedroom moving the furniture around and it landed on his truck windshield. She can’t even imagine how angry her father would be with her right now. The two things he had always told her: How beautiful she is. How stupid she is. Before now, there had been room in her mind for doubt that she is stupid. But now she is convinced that her father’s opinion of her had been an excellent evaluation of her capacities. She is pretty and pretty stupid. 

She flushes the toilet and brushes her teeth before she climbs into bed. Curled up in a ball under the sheets, she falls asleep replaying each and every time she remembers her father calling her an idiot. It is the most she has thought of him since he died. 

“Baby?” She wakes up to his voice in the dark. His hand is in her underwear stroking her slit. “You been cryin’?” 

Her mind is foggy as she comes out of her dreams. 

“‘Cause you got nothing to cry about.” He turns her from her side, onto her back and begins massaging a breast with his other hand. For the first time, she actually wants this. She doesn’t want to think about the shit storm coming her way. She grabs Wade by the back of his neck and pulls him down onto the bed beside her. “Whoa!” He chuckles. 

“Make love to me. Show me it’s gonna be okay.” She doesn’t believe it, but she wants to. She pulls her shirt up over her head and shucks her underwear. He briefly hesitates but is soon yanking his boxer briefs down and moves to bring her back down on the bed. She stops him. “Not like that.” She doesn’t want to feel like she is fucking Wade. She wants to pretend this is someone she loves and wants to be with. Someone who is not Wade. Pretend this is a different world and that this is a boyfriend and he loves her and she loves him and this is just a perfect night. That’s what she wants. 

Confused, Wade lies back on the bed and she straddles his thighs. She closes her eyes and ghosts kisses over his hard chest. The man she sees in her mind has a smaller chest. A lithe young body like her own. Around her own age. 

“You don’t have to-” Wade starts but she hushes him. 

In the darkness she hears his heavy breathing and feels his muscles bunch and contract as he tries to control himself. This isn’t like him. He is used to being in control. But the man in her fantasy isn’t always in control. She shifts up to his hips and grinds her hips against his him. His breathing hitches and she smiles. The movement stimulates her nub. She takes his hands and places them on her breasts. He responds by massaging them while rubbing her nipples with his thumbs. 

When she is ready, Emily moves up on her knees and takes him inside her. The position has a completely different sensation. She hears her own mewl and smiles. This feels much better. At first she places her hands on his chest and bounces up and down. But as good as it feels, it isn’t quite right. She instinctively thinks to lean back, bracing her hands on his legs and bounces on him. “Oh!” She cries out in surprise. He presses up against a nerve that isn’t deeper, but just angled differently. And it feels heavenly. She doubts she will last long this way. She moves on him but her body trembles. 

“I need…” she says but isn’t sure what he can do about it. 

“Oh fuck!” She hears Wade but doesn’t care about his intrusion on her fantasy when he grips her hips and lifts her up and down while bucking his hips up into her in time. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He chants like a prayer. 

It feels so removed from her previous experiences with Wade it is easy to imagine it isn’t him. To just enjoy the moment for what it is. That beautiful, sweet boy in her fantasy. “I love you!” She cries out when she reaches the precipice. His hips snap hard and fast dragging her over the edge like a roller coaster dragging her faster than her body can fall. She has never had an orgasm like that before. 

Emily suspects she should imagine she is sleeping with someone else when Wade wants sex in future.


	4. Strangers in a Strange Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arnett's move out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudo's. I realize this account is new, so it doesn't look like I've read anyone else's works but I have as a guest. Didn't need an account to read as a guest. Anyway, enjoy!

“You can’t kick us out! It’s our land and Emily’s gonna deliver my grandbaby in a few months!” Emily hears Marilyn explode from the house. The only voice she has heard since Don and a few others in charge around here called the three of them in there. Wade and Marilyn had insisted that whatever they had to say, couldn’t be allowed to stress her and the baby out. Reluctantly they had allowed them to leave her in the caravan. 

At 5 months pregnant, her belly is round and hard, sitting impossibly high as it appears to intersect with her breast bone. She never really looked at pregnant women before everything went to shit and she can’t remember seeing other women’s pregnant bellies sitting so high. She doesn’t have problems with needing to pee all the time like she has heard, but she does have problems breathing. She can never quite take a deep breath. If they have to leave she is shit out of luck. She can’t run far or fast. Running would require being able to breathe heavy. Something she just can’t do right now. It feels as though the baby is invading her lung space. 

Instead of being excited about the baby, like she wants to be, all she really has is fear. The bigger her belly gets the harder it is to think about anything but her fear. She has also been aware of the degrading relationship between Marilyn and Don. Every time they are near each other, it results in arguing. 

She can feel it. This is it. They are being kicked out. 

It doesn’t escape her notice that she watched Nina being led to Don’s place a good 100 yards away. Emily doubts Nina can hear this. It is better this way. If Nina stays here, she will be safe. She can live with that. No need for all of them to die out there.

As she sits in the caravan hours later, heading out of the compound under gunpoint, listening to Marilyn ranting from the front passenger seat, she feels empty. Not scared for her safety. Not angry with Marilyn and Wade. Not sad that she didn’t get to say goodbye to Nina. Just empty. She fell in with Wade to keep her and Nina safe. Instead of keeping her safe, she has ended up out on the road with them. If she had just taken her chances and refused to play ball, if Don had kicked her out she wouldn’t be pregnant right now. But she also wouldn’t have Wade at her side and likely would need to watch out for Nina too. 

She is also a terrible mother because she can’t find it in her to be scared for her baby. She assumes it is much like how she couldn’t quite grasp becoming pregnant in the first place. It had been an intellectually understanding but not something she had really taken in. She feels a baby kick occasionally now, but it could be anyone’s child right now. She doesn’t feel a stake in that child’s life just yet. And maybe that’s just it. A large part of her doesn’t expect to survive long enough to have a baby anyway. 

There is some freedom in having such low expectations. She isn’t about to become catatonic and die. Emily doesn’t have it in her to entirely give up. Which means there is always a chance she could still live. Maybe. She has gotten used to nothing but maybe’s. 

They drive back roads for hours until they reach a gas station that looks like it has seen better days. Marilyn has calmed down for now. Her ranting ended over an hour ago. “Go on, Wade. I’ll keep an eye on her.” She whispers. 

Wade gets out and heads toward the store. She can hear half a dozen walkers snarling nearby. “Ma’am!” She hisses in alarm. 

The older woman shakes her head at her and holds a finger to her lips. 

Emily purses her lips and stares out into the glow of the sunset. The deep shadows make it difficult to see where exactly the walkers are, but none of this is promising. Why are they stopping here? 

When he comes back, he appears at the door with a grin and industrial size handcart. It has water, tubs of flour, crates of granola bars, a bag of apples, guns and ammunition. This is all on top of the food and weapons they brought with them. 

“This didn’t all fit in the wrangler. Help me load it.” 

This amount of supplies could last them months. Emily starts to consider the possibility they are counting 6+ months of survival instead of 6+ weeks. For the first time she starts picturing the birth and that empty feeling is replaced with terror. How is a baby supposed to get out of her little vagina? How has it taken her until this far along, to face this inevitable event? She nearly groans aloud at her own stupidity.

They finish loading the caravan and to her surprise Marilyn decides to go in the Wrangler. 

“I’ll take first watch. Give the two of you a little privacy.” 

The door shuts and Wade grins at her in the light of the oil lamp. He takes her by the hand and leads her into the bedroom. 

“You don’t have to worry baby. We saw what that dick was up to. We saw it coming and we made provisions for it.” He kisses down her neck while she tries to take in what he is saying. They have been hoarding this whole time. As he undresses them and pulls her into bed, he continues talking. “I swear to god, give me a boy and Momma’ll teach you natural family planning. Baby, just one son and I’ll never ask you for another.” 

He doesn’t wait to warm her up before shoving 2 fingers inside her. Her knee jerk reaction gets the better of her. She slaps at his hand and scrambles away from him. 

“You can’t hold safety over my head anymore. Safety was the compound.”

“Hey, shh-shh-shhh!” He coaxes her gently. “It’s okay. Nothin’s gonna hurt you. I won’t let it. I won’t make you do anything. Just come to sleep. I won’t do nothing.” 

Wade seems to be telling the truth and it has been a long day. And she is tired and there is only one bed. Emily relents and joins him. She falls asleep quickly. 

She wakes up dreamily. Her loins aching with want. A man is suckling on her nipple as his tip probes her entrance. “Wad-” He thrusts into her with a groan. 

“You wanted it.” He tells her and begins to move inside her. “I’m gonna make you feel good.” 

At first she is too shocked to respond. But once she wrestles past the shock and initially waking up, she squirms. “Get off!” She smacks him in the head. 

“Don’t be like that. We both know how you beg for it once we get into it.” He teases her as though he were a kid pulling on her pigtails. Only this is a lot more serious to her. 

Anger flashes up and she bites down hard enough on his shoulder to draw blood. 

He hits her in the side of her head causing her to let go and see stars. 

She can hear a handful of walkers shuffling outside. 

In the dark she can make out his head above her. What is he going to do now? Has she gone too far?

“You were enjoying yourself. I saw you. I heard you.”

“I didn’t want it earlier, I don’t want it now. Stop.”

She can feel he has softened inside her and by the time he pulls out, he has lost his erection. 

“I heard about those pregnancy hormones but goddamn. Turned my sweet peach into a bitch.” He grumbles and gets dressed. “Fine. I was gonna take my watch after we did it.”

Emily curls in a ball and feels a surge of victory. She just won her first fight with him. She did it! This is the first confrontation she has had with an adult and come out feeling like she actually won. Maybe she is an adult. She isn’t sure of the date, but she figures she turned 18 a few weeks ago. Somewhere in there. 

18 years old, sort of married, about 5 months pregnant, stood her ground in a fight with an adult and won. Biting him wasn't particularly adult, but she did stand up for herself. It has to count for something. It makes her think it is time she considered herself an adult. This baby is coming and if she doesn’t take charge, Marilyn’s going to push her out of the way and take over. If she wants any semblance of control over her life and the baby, she will have to make them see her as an equal. And she needs to make Wade and Marilyn see her as an equal or find a group that treats her better. The Arnett's aren’t taking care of her out of the goodness of their hearts. She knows this. She knows without a doubt that they are using her. This baby will see her as a role model and she can't teach it to settle for being used. 

Wade and Marilyn view her as a means to an end. How long will they keep her for once they get what they want from her? When they start running low on food and she’s given them a baby, are they honestly going to keep an extra mouth like her around to feed? She needs to make them see her differently. Or find a new group.

\-----------------------------------------

“These people don’t have nothin’. Move on.” Emily tells them. But her husband and mother in law are busy drawing up plans of attack. She folds her arms and watches sullenly. They still have plenty of food and ammunition but Marilyn never misses an opportunity to collect more. Including from a starving group. 

This past month of trying to change how they see her, Emily has wanted nothing more than to find another group. To start over. But after seeing what shape these people are in, she figures she is better off with the Arnett’s for just a little longer. Besides, whatever their motives, they take great care of her. People out there are struggling and she is still relatively comfortable. 

“You’re still outnumbered.” Emily points out when they agree to a line of attack. 

“They’re weak, tired and only prepared for walkers. This plan will stitch them up.” Wade smiles before he turns his back on her to leave. 

“You’re talking about getting another pregnant woman killed.” She says and he stops stock still. “You didn’t think I saw that, did you?” 

She sees him swallow as he turns around. Marilyn and Wade exchange a look. 

“I’ve got this.” Marilyn steps in and bends down to eye level with her. “Kid, it’s survival of the fittest now. Those who adapt get to stay alive. They’re not surviving. You want them to drag out their slow deaths?”

Emily doesn’t agree but she can see arguing with them is futile. 

The older woman smiles and taps her knees. “Knew you’d see the truth. Stay outta sight.” 

Choosing not to stew, she goes back to trying to crochet. She is terrible at it so far, but Marilyn says to keep at it. ‘Practice makes perfect.’ They don’t teach her anything that will help her protect her own life. ‘While you’re pregnant, your job is to stay out of trouble.’ Her mounting frustration is becoming evident but the Arnett’s shrug it off as hormones. Hormones her ass. 

Without a clock it is hard to sense the passage of time, but she notices the sun has moved. She didn’t hear any gunshots-

That’s when two gunshots ring out. She drops the row she was working on and her hands begin to tremble. “Wade!” His name tears out of her throat. All concern for her own safety are lost at the thought that the only people she has in the world to help her raise this baby might be dead. She drops her work on the table and takes off out of the caravan. She ducks by a slow moving walker and keeps running for the house she saw earlier. 

Emily is becoming winded where the baby is managing to squeeze her lungs. But she can’t stop running. She has to know now. 

“Marilyn?” She doesn’t hear anything in return. “Wade? Marilyn! Someone answer me!” She breaks through the brush and is met by a group standing outside a house with firearms pointed at her. At their feet are the bodies of Marilyn and Wade. This can't be real. Like her parents and sister, their lives are over too quickly. She rushes forward and drops to her knees. She touches Wade but is met with warm blood. Her breaths start coming in short frantic bursts and she can feel herself becoming light headed. 

“She’s gonna faint.” She hears an old man’s voice say right before the world becomes instant night. 

\-------------------------------------

When she comes to, she is on a couch staring up at a man with long white hair. “She’s comin’ to.” 

Members of their group are scattered across the room. Each with varying degrees of interest in her. 

“Well, the lady wasn’t lyin’.” A woman with short, silver hair sniffs. Her eyes are soft and mournful. 

“My name’s Hershel Greene. What’s your name child?” 

“Emily Crane, Sir.” 

He smiles warmly at her and nods. “That’s good. May I ask as to the whereabouts of the baby’s father?” 

Wade’s dead. Her breathing picks up again as it hits her all over again. “Is the.. The dark blond man outside? He’s um… he’s dead, isn’t he Sir?” 

“I’m afraid so. They left us no choice-”

“I know, Sir.” She admits. Emily doesn't want to hear the details of what they did in their last moments. 

Another man steps forward, small angry eyes and battle hardened in demeanor. Looks like the one they spied on the harley. “I was right. You were gonna kill us and take our weapons!” He jabs an arrow in her direction while he sneers at her. 

A third man, sketchier still than the last steps forward. “I’m Rick Grimes. You’re lookin’ pretty good for a family picking bones out here.” His eyes are hollow and desperate. 

“Temporary, Sir. Matter of time until we’re-” there isn’t a we anymore. “I’m standing where you are. I said taking a group your size on was too risky, but they don’t like competition.” 

His face darkens. Maybe she could tone it down for them. But she is at their mercy. She hopes candor will be appreciated and ease fears that she is keeping information from them. She sits up slowly. 

Rick cocks an eyebrow and looks back at the pregnant woman with him. His hard eyes turn back on her. “That’s how they saw us, then? Competition.” He shakes his head and takes a seat beside her. “Alright, you wanna stay with us, you tell me about those two. What’s your connection?” 

She doesn’t hesitate to tell them everything and hope they are good people. She doesn't see other options open to her. “Wade was my husband. He rescued me and my sister from walkers. She’s only 15 and I left her with Don. I think Nina’ll be okay.” She stops talking when she sees the annoyed expression on his face.

“Have you got anything useful to tell us?” Rick inquires. 

So that’s it? They don’t care. They aren’t going to help her either. Deflated she gives all she thinks she has left to offer. If this doesn’t win her allies, she is out of hope. “Marilyn calculated we have enough food for the 3 of us to last 8 months if we’re easy on our supplies. And we have guns and ammo.” 

Someone whistles and a small party forms promptly from the group. 

“Where?”

“Same direction I came from is a caravan and hard top Jeep.”

Four people file out of the room. She notices a boy for the first time, looking curiously at her. “Just like that? Surrender everything?”

Emily shrugs. She can’t drive two cars and technically doesn’t know how to drive. She doesn’t have access to her dirt bike. She can’t fight. She can barely shoot a still target. She doesn’t know how to hunt or fish. What does she know that can help her alone in these woods? She notices a blonde girl around her age. But the girl is more focused on the small party that went after the caravan and jeep. She is probably hungry. Or she thinks Emily is a complete loser. 

“How far along are you?” The kindly old man asks her. The way they defer to him taking care of her indicates he might be a Dr. The most medical care she has had this pregnancy was a woman who hadn’t finished nursing school and a retired pharmacist. 

“About 6 months.” 

“You seem pretty healthy. Mind if I measure you to see?” 

“The nurse was doing that before I left. Sure.” 

He opens a black leather bag and pulls out a measuring tape. She quickly lies back on the couch and shifts the top of her yoga pants down a little. He carefully measures twice before he says anything. “You come up 26 and a half. But you’re looking a little underweight. Judging by the look of your… friends, I would guess this isn’t a supply problem. The baby’s riding pretty high there. Hard to breathe and eat, I’m guessin’.” 

She becomes hopeful. “Can you do something about that?” 

“‘Fraid not.” He shakes his head sadly. “Just tell you to take it easy because over exerting yourself will lead to fainting spells.” He adds with a small smile. “You should try eating lots of small-”

“Frequent meals because I can’t eat much in one sitting.” She finishes for him. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. Thanks.” She is about to get up when he starts feeling around her belly. She holds still. The nurse and pharmacist didn't try that. 

“Head isn’t engaged yet. First baby?” 

Her eyes widen in alarm. “I was 17, ‘course it’s my first!” 

He disarms her with an apologetic smile. “Meant no offense Ms, I had to check. First time mother’s tend to go later and their babies tend to engage later. Still got plenty of time.”

“Engage what?” It feels weird to have this conversation in front of other people but she gets the sense no one trusts her enough to give her privacy. But then she looks at the other pregnant woman. Or they’re used to witnessing pregnancy check ups. 

“T-Dog’s back. And he’s smilin’.” The boy sounds hopeful from where he is watching at the window. 

He strolls inside with a face splitting smile. “The girl didn’t lie. We just need a safe place to hole up for the rest of winter and we’re set!”

Quiet celebration breaks out among the group. She hears vehicles arrive outside. The boy standing guard at the window and the teenage girl at the window don’t indicate any problem. Emily assumes it is Rick and the angry redneck. The guys come in with canned goods, water and blankets. 

Emily quietly watches them with apprehension. What happens now? Are they going to leave her behind? No one particularly shows interest in her. There is a clear demarcation between their group and her. Even sitting on the couch among them, she can feel her otherness. It worries her. 

As they settle in for the night, Rick motions for her to join him outside. She sees Lori and her boy, Carl, going into the caravan. She supposes the older pregnant woman could do with a good night’s sleep on a real bed. She see’s the Asian guy standing guard with his girlfriend. Emily doesn’t have everyone’s names straight. There are just a few more people than she can keep track of. 

Following Rick’s cue, she sits on the porch steps beside him. He looks out into the moonlight. Maybe deciding what he is going to say next. 

“Are you going to leave me behind?” 

He isn’t surprised by her question. It tells her that it is something he is considering doing. “You’ve be’n nothing but honest with us so far as I can tell. I’ll give you the same respect in return.” This isn’t starting well. 

A part of her wants to break down crying and beg him to let her stay with them. But she isn’t watching out for Nina anymore and he can’t offer something like the promise of safety that came with the compound. 

“You don’t have a whole lot to offer our group.” 

“My food and ammo and supplies is a lot more than you have to offer.” 

“After your two friends tried to ambush us, you should expect retaliation. At the very least, you’d lose your valuables.” His body language is unyielding. She wonders if he was always this cold or is he another casualty? 

“I didn’t help them.” 

“You would’ve profited from their gains.” 

She doesn’t have much to say to that, so she redirects. “Doesn’t matter how you cut it, you take my supplies and ditch me here you’re as good as killing me and my baby.” The cold reality of what he and his group are probably going to do next sinks in. “If you’re gonna kill me, be a man about it and shoot me in the head. Don’t leave me here for a slow death.” She doesn’t want to be another walking corpse that starved to death in a farmhouse or bled to death while giving birth. She doesn't have think she can commit suicide.

She can’t see his face in the dark but his posture is stiff. When minutes have passed and her backside is becoming numb, she gives up on getting an answer tonight and decides to turn in. She stands up and takes a step to the door when he speaks. 

“If you join us, there’s something you need to know first. This isn’t a democracy. Once I make a decision, we’re done talkin' about it. Everyone does as they’re told, everyone does their best within their capacity.” 

Exchanging one dictatorship for another. Only difference is Rick admits it. 

“Is that a problem for you?

He isn’t going to like her answer. Should she just go with it? But she doesn’t know what this rule entails. “Last time I wrote a man a blank check like that, I was coerced into marriage with him, sex every night and knocked up. I can’t write anymore blank checks to men, Rick.”

“Shit.” He breathes. 

Not that Emily knows what response she expected, but it wasn’t that. He stands up and faces her. Under the moonlight, he meets her eye and places a reassuring hand her shoulder. “I can’t say I blame you for your conditional counter offer and I readily accept this condition. It went without saying with the others but they’ve known me longer. They knew I’d never do something like that. Now, can you accept my authority otherwise?” 

She stares at him, unsure whether she can trust him. Is he the real deal? Or is this another bait and switch? “And the baby? When it’s born?” 

“Becomes a part of our group.” 

A lump forms in her throat. “I’ve been as strong as I can be. But another man uses me like that and…” she chokes off and starts crying. In a fatherly way, he stands straight and pulls her against him for a hug.

“Our group ain’t perfect but I’ll never let that happen here.” 

She wants to believe him. She has to believe Rick. Because she is running out of options again.


	5. Only Asking for a Missile Silo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Becoming a part of the group can seem like a futile exercise when Emily is taking two steps forward and three steps back.

The first thing she sees when she wakes up is the redneck standing over her. She was given the privilege of the couch. It is a step down from the bed in the caravan but that’s currently occupied by the pregnant woman called Lori and Rick, the leader. She would smile with relief at the redneck because they hadn’t abandoned her; but the way he is staring at her puts a halt to that thought. She could swear he sees right through her and he doesn't like what he sees. 

“What?” She asks as she sits up. 

“You called him your husband.” 

She looks around and sees everyone has already packed up and are loading into the vehicles. Are they leaving her? Her heart begins to race. 

“Well, that’s how they saw us.” 

He cocks an eyebrow at her statement. “You two share vows?” 

She huffs. “I never would’ve agreed to that. I woke up one mornin’ and was told I’d be moving in with him.” 

Emily feels as though she is being tested. For what though?

“You didn’t make any vows, why’d you call him your husband then?” 

Why did she consider him her husband? “I-” she isn’t sure she has an answer to that question. “He called me his wife and I’ve never been with another man and...” A ream of excuses come up but none of them are really true. They wanted the truth and it was going to cost her. “If I didn’t go along with it, that would mean admitting that I was trading my body for food, shelter and security.” She looks nervously at the window, car doors are shutting. “They’re leavin’.”

He grunts but doesn’t voice his thoughts any further. Emily realizes it isn’t just her imagination, Rick told this man something. What did he tell him? She feels exposed and a little betrayed. All this vulnerability and they were only going to ditch her anyway. Why did she even bother? “Rick’s expecting you to ride with his family in the caravan.” He announces and turns his back on her. 

They aren’t going to leave her behind... She almost breaks down in tears of relief but she needs to get out of here now, if she wants to catch her ride. Blanket in one hand she gets up a little slower than she would like but she doesn’t want to make herself light headed. She wishes she knew this was a clear win. She wishes she knew that this group was going to be the ‘good guys.’ But she doesn’t know that. They aren’t happy, they are showing signs of fatigue and strain. Is that infighting? Is that due to their dictator, Rick? Or is that simply because they don’t have a home at the moment? 

“Where are you from Emily?” Lori asks her after they get back on the road. 

She has always hated that question. “Military family. Dad just got out last year.” 

Lori smiles, trying to be encouraging. Rick is driving up front and Carl is sitting beside him. 

“Where’d you settle?” 

“Town outside DC.” She feels herself getting smaller. Should she tell them about the motel they were living in at the time everything went wrong? Should she tell them about her father’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Or how her grandparents were paying for their private school because they didn't approve of the local public school? What does it matter? Lori’s just being polite. Except, the Arnett’s never asked her where she was from. Seven months and they never thought to ask where she was from? If anything, it proves something to her that she probably should have realized from the beginning: the Arnett’s never saw her as a person but as an object. A resource. Something to be used. That Lori and Rick and the redneck are asking questions about her, suggests they have an interest in who she is. That they view her as a person. 

Emily begins to feel a little better about surrendering so easily to them. 

“When are you due?” Lori tries again to make conversation. 

She looks down at her belly. It really hits her. Wade is dead. While he was alive, this baby served a purpose. She might not particularly want a baby but it would please him and Marilyn. Now what? Her face falls. 

“I’m sorry.” Lori apologizes. “I didn’t mean to… you’re still upset about him. Of course, you are.” She says more to herself than to Emily. 

“What did your father do in the military?” Rick speaks up from the front. He has to speak a little louder to be heard from where he is. 

“Navy SEAL. But he’d been pulled out of combat years ago. He’s been in operations-” she breaks off as she remembers he retired. “Well, he was pushing paper until he retired last year. Wait, it’s been more than a year now.” Her story is changing by the minute. “Time’s flying by here.” 

“He didn’t teach you anythin’ in all that time?” 

She feels the need to defend her father’s parenting. He gave them opportunities to learn to defend themselves. When they weren't too interested, he backed off. “I can hit a target with a rifle or a shotgun, but never tried hitting a moving target. I was big into motocross until it wasn’t in our budget. Year he retired, I won girl’s nationals in motocross. You need someone to get up a 300% grade in record time with a bike, I’m your girl. Otherwise that skill probably isn’t too helpful in this world.” 

“She could’ve saved Sophia.” Carl theorizes. 

She looks at Lori and the woman smiles with mournful eyes. “Yeah, sweetie. I think maybe she could’ve.” 

As curious as Emily is about who Sophia is, she can sense that the topic is closed to conversation. “Where are you guys from?” Maybe it would be better if they talked about the Grime’s family. 

“King County, just outside of Atlanta.” Lori answers. 

That was easy enough. “What did you do before all this?”

“I was a stay at home Mom and Rick was a cop.” 

That couldn’t sound much more idyllic if they tried. Emily tries to think of other questions to ask them. “How far along are you?” 

Lori again obliges easily enough. “Around seven months.” 

“We’ve got the worst sense of timing, huh?”

She watches the other woman laugh. “You have no idea.” Emily senses there is more to the story but doesn’t want to push it. Lori moves into the kitchen space and starts boiling water on the caravan’s power. “Hershel said you’re about a month behind me." So then why did she ask how far along Emily is? "How’ve you been doing?” Her voice isn’t loud enough for Rick and Carl to hear. 

The move further into the kitchen area while Rick and Carl sit up front, creates a private conversation space. Emily suspects the conversation isn’t intended for Carl to hear. But she doesn’t know how much she can share with this woman. Or rather wants to share.

“I haven’t-it was-er-” she stumbles over her own words. 

“It’s okay.” Lori shakes her head. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I just thought, you’re a first time mother and I doubt they were particularly easy to talk to-”

“He told you?” Is there anyone Rick didn't tell about the situation she came from?

Her eyes soften. “No secrets between us. We had to stop doing that to make it this far.” She sits down at the table and directs Emily to sit across from her. 

“How much did he tell you?” 

Lori looks reluctant to go into it but goes on. “I’m not clear on the details but the man you were with forced you into marriage and this.” She gestures to Emily’s belly. “I doubt you’ve had an ear to listen to you in some time. You can talk to me. Or not.”

She is right. It has been a long time since Emily had anyone to talk to. But who has she really ever openly talked to? No one. She told people bits and pieces of what was really going on. But she has never had a chance to make deep connections. Not when she was going to move. Not when she was trapped under Wade and Marilyn. Not ever. And there is that part of her that is still horrified by her revelation when she was talking to the redneck not an hour earlier. 

“I shouldn’t be having a baby.” Emily says quietly. 

“Well he was too old for you, but I was only a little older than you when I had Carl. We’ll help you.” Lori reassures her. 

“You don’t understand. Wade framed it as a marriage, but I knew it wasn’t. I was scared of being forced out on my own, I traded my body for safety. What makes me any different from a prostitute?” She chokes on the word. “My Dad would be so ashamed of me!” The shame and sorrow overwhelm her and for the first time in months she is crying. Only this time in front of a stranger.

“That’s not fair. Your Dad would want you to live and sending you back out there on your own would be a death sentence. Some of us could survive much longer than others out there, but most of us wouldn’t make it.” The woman comforts her. 

Emily looks up and sees Lori exchanging a look with Rick through the rearview mirror. He must know she is crying back here. She wonders just how much of this is going to make it back to Rick. Will this information hurt her position in their group? 

Thinking that way about what she did at the compound isn't going to help her. She is going to have to learn to live with it. 

“What was living with them like?” 

She accepts the rag Lori offers and wipes her eyes. “Wonderful.” Emily responds sarcastically. She doesn’t want to break down in tears again. “What’s it like?” Lori looks confused for a second. “Giving birth?”

Lori’s face falls. “I had to have a c-section last time.” She smiles optimistically. “Maybe I’ll have better luck this time.” 

As much as she wants to ask if they can just have c-sections, she is scared to hear the answer. When is anything that easy anymore?

“You look a little tired. You wanna take a nap on the bed?” Lori offers. 

That actually doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. Emily gratefully accepts the offer. 

\------------------------------------------------------

The fire crackles gently. Nothing like the bonfires from behind the compound’s walls. This fire barely gives off any heat. They didn’t find shelter for the night after driving all day. They found a playground on a field and have circled the vehicles. Rick is standing guard on top of the caravan while the rest of them finish their meal. 

Compared to when she had first seen them, the tension in their bodies had eased a good deal. But they were still alert and prepared for an attack. Their voices were low to keep from attracting walkers. Their eyes darted out between the cars occasionally. Half an ear tuned to their surroundings. This group of gypsies has been out here for a long time. Maybe too long. Even the boy, Carl, seemed more warrior like than boyish. Is that how her baby will turn out? 

Her baby? Not Wade’s and Marilyn’s. Her baby. She isn’t sure she has actually consciously thought of the baby has hers before. Never considered that half of the baby’s DNA comes from her. By rights, it is as much hers as it Wade’s. But somehow, the way he had claimed it, often it felt like it was his first, Marilyn’s second and hers last. 

Carol takes a seat beside her. “What are you thinking about?” 

“My baby.” 

Carol smiles at her. “Is it kicking?” 

“Not a lot. Mostly when I get riled up. Like when I’m scared.”

They both stare at the glowing embers of the fire. It is barely a fire, but there are a few flames licking what little fuel is available to it. 

Carol’s presence beside her feels a little bit more inclusive. Until she looks up and sees Daryl the redneck staring at her with his penetrating gaze. What is he thinking? She can’t even tell if he approves or disapproves of her. 

The silver haired woman leans into her. “Don’t mind him. He’s just a grump. I heard your Dad was military. Where did your parents hail from?”

“My Mom was Dutch and my Dad was from Mississippi.” 

“Do you speak Dutch?”

“I understand a little, but I don’t speak it.” 

Emily assumes Carol is used to bringing people into their group. It seems to come naturally to the woman. “How’d they meet then?” 

“She was an exchange student.” The more she thinks about them, the less she wants to think about them. It hurts to think she will never see them again. “Where are you from?” 

“Not far from Atlanta. Met Lori and Carl headin’ there.” 

“Not Rick?” Emily jokes, only she soon sees Carol didn’t mention Rick for a reason. 

“He was in a coma.” 

This causes her pause for thought. “Someone had lousier timing than my family. All things considered, they’ve done well.” 

“They have.” 

A thought she hadn’t dared voice around the Arnett’s and Grimes comes more easily around Carol. The woman has kind eyes and is amiable. “I think this part of the country is too populated. Do you think the group would consider moving out west?” She thinks wistfully of something she had seen on a website years ago. “Find an old abandoned missile silo and make it a home.” 

“You want the land of milk and honey. The promised land.” Carol teases gently. 

“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds silly. I mostly want a place with less walkers.” 

“Herd’s are hedged in by valleys and hills and trees. We reach the plains and what limits the movement of herds out on the open plains?” Carol ponders aloud. 

Emily imagines a vast sea of walkers crossing the plains and shudders. Maybe it isn’t any better to be out there either. 

“It’s nice.” Carol comments and Emily is confused. “You still have optimism. Our group could do with some hope.” Before Emily can respond, Carol is standing up. “I’m takin’ the next watch.” 

Rick comes down to the group and gains everyone’s attention by his presence alone. He settles in beside Lori and Carl accepting his share of canned soup. 

All the years growing up, her family had been outsiders. All the months she had been with the Arnett’s, she had been the perpetual outsider, always moving. These people aren’t natural family, but they are family to each other. She wonders if it is possible for her to be part of a new family. Or was she raised so differently from them that she is just incapable of forming attachments to people? Making the choice to tell them everything when she first met them had been the most open she had ever been with people. A cynical part of her mind argues that opening her legs to Wade had been the most open she had been with people. A shiver slides down her spine and she stops thinking about any of that. 

“You done with that?” A sweet voice asks. Beth stands above her reaching for her bowl. With a grateful smile, Emily hands it to her. The girl nods in response without any connection. Any sense of making inroads is shot down. 

She tells herself that she needs to give it more time. How much time?

\-----------------------------------------------

The day is cold and crisp. Colder than they’ve had in some time. A thin blanket of snow is on the ground making the world seem prettier than it is during the height of summer. The smell of rot is gone from the land, along with the oppressive heat. As difficult as winter has been for the group, there are some benefits. 

“It’s alright! I’ve got it.” Emily snatches up two canteens and heads for the creek where Rick and Hershel went. 

“I’m coming too.” Beth intervenes. 

“I can get water and see if they’re ready to go.” If there were walkers between here and there, Rick and Hershel have probably already dealt with them. Emily just wants to be able to walk around by herself like the rest of the group does. She wants to become confident that she can defend herself. She has been taking lessons during her first two weeks but no one lets her and Lori anywhere near walkers. When will she get to find out if she can actually do what she is learning if she never experiences seeing them up close? 

Beth snorts and takes one of the canteens from her. “You can’t even run half a mile without faintin’, I’m not watching you walk off.” 

There is that. They walk a short distance down the road to the break in the trees they saw Rick and Hershel go into on the train tracks. 

“Not with two pregnant women nearing delivery. Lori has a month or two, tops.” They hear Hershel’s voice and look at each other. They should announce their arrival, but both want to know where Hershel is going with this. “You need to pick somewhere to settle down now. While we have food and ammo and we’re strong. I was worried with one pregnant woman, I’m real serious now we have two. This is not sustainable.” 

“Well then where do you suggest? Look at this map and you tell me where we go?” 

“Can I look?” Emily interrupts the two men standing in an opening by the creek. Beth makes a small alarmed sound in her throat that Emily just called attention to them eavesdropping. “We came for water.” 

The men look meaningfully at each other. Rick gestures at the map with a look on his face that she doesn’t quite know what to make of. His and Hershel’s empty water bottles are in their hands. There is food and water left from the Arnett’s supplies, but like them, they prefer to keep a constant stock on hand when they can resupply. 

Beth takes the canteen from her hand and goes to the creek. While Emily looks at the map, she can hear Beth smashing the ice at the edge of the creek with the canteen. 

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?” Hershel asks dryly. 

“I was dreaming about a missile silo. Don’t suppose they’d mark those on the map would they?” 

Rick places a hand on her shoulder and he is about to say something. 

“I’m sorry.” She interrupts before he can say anything. 

“I don’t need your apologies. I need you to stay with the group.” 

Emily flinches at his words and goes back the way she came. Why did she do that? What could she possibly bring to the discussion that they hadn’t already considered? She used to think that she would go to college and then she would be brought up to speed. Then she would be an equal with everyone else. But that plan is out of the picture. A hand drops on her shoulder. 

“Beth, I-” she gasps when she realizes it is a walker. It takes her longer than she would have expected to react. This is the closest she has ever been to one and it has a great gaping mouth reaching for her.

All of Rick and Glenn’s instructions fly from her mind. Flight instinct takes root and she takes off running. But the hand has a tight hold of her coat holding her back. She frantically wrestles to escape her coat. “No, no, no…” she hears someone mumble and distantly realizes that is her own voice. This is it. This is how she is going to die. She is going to be eaten alive. 

An arrow buries itself in the walker’s head and it drops to the ground in a heap of limbs. 

“Goddamn, don’t you know when to scream like a normal girl?” Daryl grumbles and walks up to the corpse to retrieve his arrow. He doesn’t seem to be her biggest fan still. 

With her surge adrenaline depleting in short order, she becomes aware of how hard she is gasping for air. Despite her efforts, it isn’t enough. Her vision begins to go white and she bends over to rest on her knees to keep from fainting. 

“Hershel!” Daryl calls as her body veers to one side, as if someone had just ripped the rug out from under her. 

She wakes up being carried by Rick back to the cars, like a stupid little kid. She screwed up by insisting on going to get water and then didn’t even get back to the cars like he told her to. 

“Shit. I’m sorry. I can walk.” She expects him to put her down but he doesn’t. She looks at his face and sees how tightly he is holding his jaw. It looks like he is grinding his teeth. On a scale of one to ten, she wonders how angry he is with her. 

The group’s attention is pulled to them and she can’t decide whether to hide her face in his neck or not. She is sure that being carried back to camp by their leader is proof positive that she can’t be trusted to make intelligent decisions. 

He deposits her in front of Lori. The anger in his face pauses while he speaks to his wife. “From now on, her orders are she goes where you go.” 

Lori nods. 

“You hear that?” Rick’s face tenses when he turns back to her. “You’ve got one job. Keep you and your baby safe. Not fetching water. Not wandering away from the group. If you can’t run without passing out, you can’t help. You got that?” 

It takes a lot of effort to keep from crying. Emily nods like a bobble head. That is the last time she tries that one. 

He strides away and Emily makes a beeline for the caravan. The public humiliation more than she can take right now. Already failing the order to follow Lori where she goes. Instead, Lori follows her into the caravan. 

“Emily, you just scared him is all.” Lori rubs her shoulder. It should have been reassuring but it mostly makes her think about the walker that she thought was Beth grabbing her shoulder. 

“Where’s Beth?” Was Beth attacked too? Is she okay? 

“She was right behind you. I saw her go talk to Maggie.” Lori tuts. “You keep getting yourself worked up like this-” 

“What? Like you do? I never see you relax. Don’t give me-” Emily regrets shooting her mouth off when she sees Lori back down. Was that really necessary? “I’m sorry. You’re right.” She sighs. “I seem to be doing that a lot these days.” 

“Doing what?” Carl asks from the doorway. 

“Apologizing.” 

Carl nods and moves around to the passenger seat up front. “Do as Dad says or someone gets killed.” He calls back over his shoulder. 

Emily looks at Lori and they seem to share the same thought. Carl doesn’t sound like the kid he appears to be. His logic is harsh. They break eye contact and Lori finds something to busy herself with. 

That is what Lori does. She is constantly in motion. That is what mother’s do, isn’t it? Always busy, working. Another reason for Emily to feel inadequate. She doesn’t look around the caravan and see things that need to be done. But Lori and Carol and Maggie do. 

She asks Lori if she can help and is brushed off. Like so many times before, she stares out the window and watches the world the group from a distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little feedback would be helpful. It's terrible? It's okay? Hopefully at least okay.


	6. Shadow Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finding a place.

The screams in Emily’s dream turns out to be the howling winter wind. Spring is right around the corner, but just out of reach. The baby kicks low in her side. After 2 weeks the baby has shifted down a little lower, giving her a little more breathing space. Emily enjoys the resulting better quality sleep. If only her dreams were free of her mother and sisters screaming for help.

The wind is picking up hard enough to rock the vehicle. She stares up at the ceiling as the first pale rays of winter daylight creep into the space.

Emily is lying on a thin pad on the hallway floor. Carl fits on the padded kitchen benches. And Rick and Lori sleep on the queen size bed that she had once shared with Wade. Whenever she misses sleeping on a real bed, she remembers who she had to share a bed with and feels better about sleeping on the floor. Rick offered to switch with her, but she doesn't like the idea of cutting in between a married couple and sending their leader to sleep on the floor. 

“The prison?” She hears Lori ask in a hushed tone from the bedroom behind her. 

“Yeah.” Rick says, as though to close the case to argument. She waits, but they don’t say anything more. 

It is the closest she has heard Lori come to questioning Rick’s judgement. Everyone obeys him. Even Daryl in his own derisive way. She wonders about their marriage. Were they always like this or did everything going to shit change the balance of power? Something is off about their marriage but she still doesn't know them well enough to put her finger on it. 

Minutes later the group are back on the road. As the miles pass by the window, she wonders about the prison Lori asked about. Is that the plan? Is that where they will go next? God, will she never have any sense of self-determination? Will she forever be led around by the nose? What happens when no one is around to protect her and Lori? Will they clutch each other and scream while being eaten alive? Visions of rotting corpses tearing into her cause her heart to start hammering in her chest. She tries to push these thoughts away but instead she does something else entirely. 

“Rick?” His name flies out of her mouth before she has decided to say something, let alone decided what to say to him. She realizes she has come to depend on and trust him in ways she never did Wade. 

“Yeah?” He glances up at her through the rear view mirror. 

She stands behind him in the driver’s seat. Her hands trembling a little as she wonders if she is about to screw up a good thing. If she is about to say something that will get her kicked out? Which is dumb because she doesn’t even know what she is going to say to him. She decides to just say what is on her mind and see where that goes. 

“I need to know how to defend myself. I need to do something. I can’t do this.” 

“You can’t do what? Stay alive?” He asks cynically. 

“I can’t sit back and depend on other people to keep me alive. Even if I only serve as backup, I need to know more than how to stab them in the head. I need to play a role in this group or I’m gonna go crazy back here.” She is never going to be a part of this group if she doesn’t build a place for herself here. 

Her heart is beating hard as she waits for his response. She questions herself and her decision to talk to him about this. Was this a wise course of action? Her eyes wander to Lori. What does she think of Emily’s announcement? Ever since this started, she has wished she was better at reading people. Times like this only make her wish it more so. 

“Won’t be ideal lessons, but we’ll see what we can do.” Rick finally answers non-committally. 

It’s something. She can live with that answer. She turns around and sees the scow on Lori’s face directed at the shirt Lori is repairing with a needle and thread. Doesn’t take a mind reader to see that Lori doesn’t like this plan. 

\----------------------------

“Again, legs shoulder width apart and keep your finger off the barrel. Or you’ll lose some skin in there when the chamber empties.” Rick explains slowly. 

“You sure this is the best use of ammunition? We’ve got plenty of people who know how to shoot.” Lori breaks in on their second lesson with her doubts. 

Emily appreciates finally hearing what it is that Lori disapproves of about this plan to teach her better defense. But she can’t help but take offense to what she perceives Lori is insinuating. “You don’t think I’m worth the ammo.” 

Lori blanches. “I didn’t say that-” 

“Lori, why don’t you go check in on Carl. We’re almost done here.”

The woman presses her lips into a tight line and leaves them. 

Emily wants to apologize. She had jumped to conclusions and been insulted unnecessarily. Lori has a fair concern. Every round shot in practice is one less round they can use to defend themselves. 

Rick pulls her attention back to his lesson. “Now, go again. We need to be done here before our fan club shows up.” He doesn’t have to explain it to her. She can figure out for herself that shooting lessons will attract the herds that have been chasing them in circles. The next swarm is likely heading their way and they need to get out of the area before the closest herd closes off their exit. 

She remembers what he said and fires again. She nails 4 of the 5 trees and wings the last. She looks at him and beams. He nods his approval. “You’re a natural.” Not likely but she accepts his encouragement for what it is. 

Rick moves forward with a string tied to a can filled with rocks. He ties it like a pendulum from a tree branch and sets it into motion. As he walks back toward her, she looks down the sight for the can. The can is hard to find, but when she does find it, she also finds a walker right behind it. She can hear Rick talking but blanks him out to slow her breathing and focus on the walker stumbling their way. Once she has it line up and predicting it’s movements, on her exhale, she pulls the trigger. She grins when she sees the walker drop from sight. 

“What you smilin’ for? You missed.” Maggie says behind her. 

“No, I didn’t. I got the walk-” she sees more shuffle into view down her sight line. That isn’t the direction they were expecting the herd to come from. “There’s more walkers. That wasn’t the only one.” Her intonation says it all. It’s a herd. 

Rick whistles at a pitch so high it hurts her ears. The group moves like a well oiled machine; packing up and getting into the vehicles by the time the first walkers make it to the clearing. 

The road out is littered with the beginnings of the herd. Daryl skirts them easily enough on his bike. Glenn ploughs through them with the Hyundai and a prayer. The caravan and truck bring up the rear before more walkers can file into the road. 

Any hopes that the two herds of walkers won’t meet up and grow in number are dashed. They are on a collision course in probably a little more than an hour. No one feels like saying much. 

Emily hangs on to the knowledge that she nailed that walker in the head like a fucking sniper! She is proud of herself and she won’t let the fact that it was attached to bad news bring her down. Pregnant or not, she sees a way ahead. A way that she will be able to take care of her and the baby. 

\---------------------------------------

As Daryl dresses a rabbit, she wonders how cold and painful the cold and damp is on his hands right now. All the times she has eaten game, this is her first time watching the guts being pulled out and skin removed. Emily would have thought it would be more disturbing, but she is too tired to care. It is nearly nightfall and they have been going house to house in a suburb all day. When she had stirred up a fuss about being left in the caravan with Lori, Rick had paired her up with Daryl and T-Dog. She managed to keep up with them and acted as back up. There had been one surprise crawler. T-Dog appreciated that she didn’t scream and attract more walkers. 

When they reach the meet up point, the others aren’t there yet. Emily doesn’t feel like waiting in the caravan with Lori and Carol. Busy as ever. And she doesn’t know where T-Dog took off to. So she kneels near Daryl, watching him take a rabbit apart. Once upon a time this would have horrified her. Now she just sees dinner. 

“I get it.” Daryl says from beside the tree. He gets what? “You had your kid sister to watch out for. You didn’t know the first thing about survivin’ out here. You didn't do any worse than killin’ the livin’ to survive out here.” 

Is he talking about murder? Daryl is comparing hooking up with Wade to murder? Being with Wade wasn’t horrible. 

“I liked him.” She says quietly. “For all his faults, I liked him.” 

Daryl eyes her and she feels pressure to explain herself. 

“He wasn’t a bad guy.” She doesn’t like the idea of these guys seeing Wade as the devil. People look better in retrospect than you saw them at the time. 

When Daryl doesn’t say anything straight away, she thinks he has dropped the subject. Instead, he kisses his teeth. “You wanted his baby?” 

“No!” She is horrified by the implication. She didn’t want to bring a baby into this at all. Why would he even ask her that? 

“First time you said no… what happened?” His words are gravelly and hard to hear. But she hears him well enough. 

Where is he going with this line of thinking? She thinks back to the first time she was with Wade. Did she say no? She remembers saying she didn’t want to get pregnant. She remembers saying she didn’t think she could do this. She decides that doesn’t really count. She didn’t try to stop him. Then she remembers the second time. She said no that time. She meant no that time. Emily remembers more about it than she cares to remember. She looks away. She had almost forgotten one of her worst moments was at Wade's hands. Maybe he wasn't a bad guy. But he wasn't a good guy either. 

“He wasn’t a bad guy?” Daryl asks critically. 

She can’t look him in the eye. 

“That’s what I thought.” He knocks on the caravan and hands over the dressed rabbit. Carol accepts it with a smile. “Think Rick’ll have us sleep in this place tonight.” He points at the house they’re parked outside of. Carol nods and goes back inside the caravan. 

Emily wonders at how quickly she forgot about the times Wade scared and hurt her. The times he ignored what she wanted and did what he wanted. At some point, she had started seeing Wade and Marilyn as good cop, bad cop. 

As Daryl washes his hands, she watches him. “Why does it matter if I don’t want to see Wade as a bad guy?” 

The hunter’s face hardens. “How many men gonna get in your panties ‘fore you learn your lesson, girl? I get that you’re young an’ didn’t know no better. But he wasn’t your friend an’ he wasn’t your husband. Not after he did all to you, you should know better now.” 

The others arrive at that moment and Daryl walks away from her. 

His words are like a slap in the face but she senses he doesn’t mean it in a malicious way. Daryl might be indelicate, but he has a point. Wade took advantage of her fear and inexperience. If she lets herself only remember the good parts of her time with Wade, she risks making the same mistakes all over again later. She is disappointed with herself for wanting to gloss over the negative aspects of her experience. As cheap and hurt as she feels due to Daryl's harsh words, she can see the wisdom in the point he was trying to get at. 

Does Daryl know this from experience? Has he used people like Wade did? Or has Daryl been the one who was used? Does it really matter? She is the one that needs to keep a solid grasp on what happened. Next time she meets people like Wade and Marilyn, she needs to keep her eyes open for tricks like they played. Isolation, inconsistencies, etc...

If she could do it over, she would find a way to talk to Don from the beginning. He and his family were good people and there were signs early on of that. She was so eager for a place to fit in, she ignored all warning signs of trouble coming from Wade and Marilyn. She was like water and chose the path of least resistance. Except that path led to a polluted creek and she would be more wary of where paths lead before she takes them in future. 

\------------------------------

The relief in the cell block is palpable. For the first time, in a long time, they have a secure place to sleep the night. Yesterday, when Rick had decided to take the prison, Emily had been convinced they were all going to die trying to pull it off. But then they’d managed to take the field before nightfall. Rick’s crazy plan had worked. Still, that was a long way off from taking this cell block. 

With Lori at 9 months pregnant and Emily just a month behind her, she didn’t have the heart to speak up. They needed the prison. The food supplies from the Arnett’s will be through in a couple of months. So she tried her best to help them even from the distance she was restricted to with Lori. 

The cell block was more than she had hoped for but they had taken it. Now standing in the same cell as Lori as they stake their beds, she looks around with awe. 

“Is this real?” She asks Lori. 

She smiles at Emily. “It’s real. You sure you want the top bunk?” Emily climbs up to show Lori that it is easy enough for her. A pregnant 18 year old with limited access to junk food and getting plenty of exercise is relatively spry, even at 8 months pregnant. Except when Lori turns her back, Emily grimaces at the pull on her lower abdomen. It was harder to get up there than she had expected. 

The two of them aren’t natural friends, but they have been growing close. Emily still doesn’t know exactly what happened between Lori and Rick. She can see it started before she showed up. But Lori isn’t just obedient. There is a rift in their marriage. For the first month after Emily joined them, Rick and Lori shared a bed. But gradually Emily found his spot on the bed left empty. Deciding that if there was an open space for her to sleep on a real bed, she had joined Lori. 

It was clear that Rick still cared about Lori and the baby. He made sure they were healthy and safe. But he did the same for Emily. The rift hadn’t been apparent to her at first, but with more experience of their group dynamics, she could see it now. She had heard whispers about someone called Shane and suspected Lori had cheated on Rick with this man at some point. But she sensed that wasn’t the whole story and wasn’t keen to insist someone gossip with her. If Lori wanted her to know, she would have told Emily. 

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Emily is above gossip and isn’t interested in other people’s business. That might have been true before the Arnett’s. Now other people’s business is her business. The ever present fear that she doesn’t have the complete picture, has her forever trailing people who look like they are on a mission. Most of the time, that look means they are going to have a serious conversation and Emily wants to hear those conversations. Those are typically the conversations that will have the most far reaching consequences. Consequences that will affect her. 

So when Lori makes a beeline for Hershel, Emily isn’t far behind. Beth leaves as soon as Lori enters. The blonde girl takes one look at Emily waiting just out of sight and shakes her head a tiny bit. Emily stubbornly folds her arms and settles in. Beth’s disapproval only carries so far because she waits beside Emily. 

“It’s the baby, I think I lost it.” The girls look at each other with concern for Lori. 

“You haven’t felt it move?” They hear Hershel respond in his slow, calm way. 

“Nothing. And no Braxton-Hicks. At first, I thought it was exhaustion and malnutrition.” Lori’s strain and fear is in her voice. Emily thinks she isn’t doing enough to support Lori. 

“You’re anemic?” 

There is a brief pause. “If we’re all infected, then so is the baby. So what if it’s stillborn? What if it’s dead inside me right now, what if it rips me apart?” 

Emily and Beth’s eyes shoot to her large, round belly. These dreadful thoughts hadn’t even occurred to her before. How did she not think of that?

“Stop. Don’t let your fear take control of you.” The veterinarian is the voice of reason. 

But Lori has more fears to unintentionally spread to Emily. “Okay. Let’s say it lives, and I die during childbirth.” She hadn’t realized Lori was so scared of childbirth. Lori’s relaxed attitude had given her the impression that there wasn’t much to worry about. As though she had just trusted Hershel to handle it all. It would appear that Lori just has a good grip on herself. 

“That’s not going to happen.” 

“Why not? How many women died in childbirth before modern medicine? If I come back, what if I attack it? Or you, Rick, Carl… If I do, if there is any chance, you put me down immediately, you don’t hesitate!” Lori’s terrified voice gives way to tears. “Me, the baby, if we’re walkers, you don’t hesitate, and you don’t try to save us! Okay?” They don’t hear Hershel’s response. Just a pause. "It might have been better if…” the woman doesn’t finish the thought. 

“If what?” Hershel asks the question both girls want to know the answer to. 

“If I’d never made it off the farm.” 

“Emily, I think you’ve heard enough.” Beth whispers in her ear. Emily shrugs her off. 

“You’re exhausted, frightened.” Hershel again, tries to be the voice of reason. 

“Yeah, that’s true. My son can’t stand me. And my husband, after what I put him through.”

“We’ve all been carrying that weight. All winter.” Emily wonders how Hershel can remain calm listening to her. Probably because it isn’t his body that is about to be ripped apart by a walker newborn. 

“I tried to talk to him. He…”

Hershel interrupts her this time. “He’ll come around.”

“He hates me. He’s too good a man to say it, but… I know. I put him and Shane at odds, I put that knife in his hands!”

“You know who doesn’t give a shit about that? This baby. Now let’s make sure everything’s alright.” 

Emily walks back to her cell and climbs back up onto her bunk. To her dismay, Beth stands in the doorway. “You shouldn’t’ve listened to that.” 

“Go away.” She pulls a blanket to her chest because she doesn’t have a pillow yet. 

“Emily, let’s talk about this.” Beth insists.

“What’s there to talk about?” She hisses. “I fucked Wade all those months thinking it would keep me alive!” She has a watery, bitter smile. “All that time and I’ve be’n probably carrying his demon spawn, waiting for it’s chance to eat me alive from the inside out!” 

The girl shakes her head at her. “Don’t be so dramatic. You’ll probably be fine-”

“Then why is Lori shitting bricks in there?”

Beth climbs the bunk bed and wraps her arms around Emily. The hug isn’t much in the way of comfort, but she appreciates it for what it means. The girl cares that Emily is scared. Knowing that Beth cares is a starting point. She tells herself that when she dies giving birth, at least Beth will care that she died. She won’t be another anonymous death that no one witnessed or cared about. 

Again, Emily had been led into a false sense of security by the people around her. She thought they would speak honestly with her about the risks she faced but they hadn’t talked about any of this. A sense of betrayal pervades her feelings. She saw Beth’s reaction and knows that the girl hadn’t thought of any of that either. She was just as shocked and horrified by Lori’s fears as Emily was. As though Beth could imagine that some day this could be her, pregnant and alone and facing this magnitude of horror. 

What other dangers does Emily face giving birth? She is aware of bleeding out and the baby getting stuck. There must be more that Emily doesn’t know of but she doesn’t have a library or internet to access. The pregnancy book she had been reading had given her monthly read, but she hadn’t read as far as delivery when the book was left behind in a house. 

She once thought that people were wrong about fear being contagious. But she was wrong. Lori’s fear of the unknown has proven highly contagious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudo's! 
> 
> Another day, another update. I'll need a little more time for future updates for the rest of April. Come May, I hope to be posting just as quickly again. 
> 
> I welcome feedback!


	7. A Lesson in Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First days in the prison.

Rick, Daryl, T-Dog, Hershel, Maggie and Glenn had gone on a scavenging mission deeper into the prison. Carl had been left in charge of the door they left through. Immensely bored, Emily was curious about Carl. Like everyone else in this group, he doesn’t say much. When she sits across from where he stands guard, he barely nods his head in acknowledgement. Something has changed about him, but she doesn't know what exactly. He seems older. Something is setting in. 

Does he have any idea how much danger Lori is in? Why does he hate Lori? Or does he even hate her? Is that just what Lori thinks? 

“How long have they been gone?” She asks Carl. 

“45 min-”

Daryl bursts through the barred door and Carl is already pulling out his key to open the last barred door to the cell block. The sound of metal rattling announces Hershel’s arrival on a metal platform on wheels. Maggie is holding Hershel’s amputated leg, trying to hold back the tide of blood that is pouring from his raw stump. 

“Open the door! It's Hershel! Carl! Come on.” Rick’s voice booms from the doorway, but Carl is already opening the door when at the end of his father’s first sentence. The scavenging group arrive and Carol and Beth are the first to meet the platform. They are a whirling flood of chaos going into Hershel’s cell. 

Emily watches T-Dog lock up the cell block. Is he preparing for an attack? Where’s Daryl? She watches Hershel being taken in for what passes for medical care these days. She can’t watch Hershel like that. She goes to her cell for her rifle and decides to see what T-Dog and Daryl are doing. 

What is he expecting to come through here? T-Dog stops her before she can go past him. He puts a finger to his lips and she looks through the opening at Daryl preparing to shoot at the dark doorway. Her rifle only has one bullet, if these two are expecting an attack, she wants in on this ambush. They worked too hard to get the cell block. She isn’t giving it back. 

“Emily, I don’t think-” 

“Open the door, Carl.” 

He shakes his head but lets her through and locks it behind her.

Waiting in the shadows with T-Dog, she watches as a man emerges from the dark doorway. His hair in a half ponytail, he has a jumpsuit tied at his waist and a white vest on. Emily takes up a stance with her rifle at Daryl’s back. She only has the one bullet left, but she hopes her rifle is intimidating enough that whoever is coming through this door doesn’t find out. Another man emerges behind him wearing the same jumpsuit. It dawns on her that these men are prisoners These are surviving convicts. Or rather, ex-convicts. 

“That’s far enough.” Daryl announces. But three more men continue to file into the space. 

“Cell block C. Cell 4-- that's mine, gringo. Let me in.” The first one says. It would seem he is their leader of sorts. 

“Today's your lucky days, fellas. You've been pardoned by the State of Georgia. You're free to go.” Daryl tells them. 

The smell hits Emily and she has to take a step back to cover her mouth and nose. These men smell almost as bad as walkers. In the warm confined space of the cell block, there isn’t an escape from the smell. Had their group ever smelled this bad? The prisoners loom large and dangerous. What if they hurt Daryl? He can’t take all 5 men on his own at once. She wishes he had locked them behind another door. 

“What you got going on in there?” Their leader asks. 

“It ain't none of your concern.”

The leader moves forward as he reaches for the gun in his belt. “Don't be telling me what's my concern.” 

Emily instinctively flinches. Daryl moves up, makes himself look larger and more imposing. The leader stops moving but holds his gun aimed at Daryl. T-Dog places a hand on her shoulder. 

“Chill, man. Dude's leg is messed up. Besides, we're free now. Why are we still in here?” The largest among them speaks quietly for a man so large. 

The prisoners have no idea what has happened to the world. Emily wonders how they could think they would still be in this prison for so long if the world wasn’t as screwed as this prison? She concludes that criminals aren’t always the sharpest pencil in the box. 

“The man's got a point.” Daryl says in a low threatening tone and Emily wonders if it is right to let these prisoners go out there without warning them about what’s going on. But does she really want to share the prison with them? 

“Yeah, and I gotta check on my old lady.” A third man speaks. 

Emily almost tells him that his old lady is long dead but bites her tongue. 

“A group of civilians breaking into a prison you got no business being in-- got me thinking there ain't no place for us to go.” The leader says and Emily knows any chance of getting these men to leave uneventfully just dissipated with those words. 

“Why don't you go find out?” Daryl pesters them. Does he really think they will go outside now that they have an inkling how bad it must be outside? Right now he has a gun pointed at his head. Is he brave or stupid? 

“Maybe we'll just be going now.” A prisoner with a beard says uncertainly. He isn’t as keen as their leader to have a confrontation with Daryl. 

Before the prisoner can say anymore their leader interrupts him. “Hey, we ain't leaving.”

The man hasn’t finished his sentence when T-Dog bursts past her and yells at him with his gun drawn and pointed at the leader’s head. “You ain’t coming in either.” She brings her rifle up to her should and trails behind him. Her rifle pointed at the leader who has his handgun pointed at T-Dog. Three weapons against the leaders one. These odds are feeling a little better. 

“Hey, this is my house, my rules. I go where I damn well please.” The prison leader sneers. 

His house? “You’ve been cowering for nearly a year. Any claims you had on this place-” Their group worked too hard clearing the cell block to be chased away. Emily can’t contain herself as she yells over their leader yelling back at her. 

“Chica, spreading your legs don’t count for being brave-” he points at her belly. 

“I’m tired of your mouth!” Daryl interrupts him.

Emily isn’t done. “This place was overrun with walkers and our group earned this space you-”

“-puta pretending like you know how to shoot that gun!”

“There ain’t nothing for you here! Why don't you go back to your own sandbox?”

Just as she is about to squeeze the trigger, Rick shows up. “Hey, everyone relax. There’s no need for this.” He tries to inject some civility into the situation. She sees his eyes shift her way and Emily knows she is in trouble with him. But he doesn’t order her to leave.

Holding his gun on Rick, the leader shifts anxiously as though to see past Rick. “How many of you are in there?”

“Too many for you to handle.” Moments like this are when Emily is grateful that Rick is in charge. He had something marginally foreboding without giving anything away. 

“You guys rob a bank or something? Why don't you take him to a hospital?” 

The two questions expose just how little these prisoners understand about what has being going on outside the prison. Rick, Daryl, T-Dog and Emily look awkwardly at each other. 

“How long’ve you been locked in that cafeteria?” Rick speaks just above a whisper. 

“Going on like 10 months.”

“Riot broke out.” The tallest man utters. “Never seen anythin’ like it.” 

“Attica on speed, man.” The man with the beard speaks with a southern twang. 

“Ever heard about dudes going cannibal, dying, coming back to life? Crazy.” The shortest man says. 

“One guard looked out for us, locked us up in the cafeteria. Told us sit tight, threw me this piece, said he'd be right back.” The leader explains. 

The second tallest man pipes up. “Yeah, and that was 292 days ago.”

“4 according to my calcula--” the man with the beard corrects him but is told to shut up by the one with the gun. He is beginning to seem less like a leader and more like a bully. His gun is back on T-Dog. For some reason, he’s the one this man feels the most antagonism toward. Or at least, the one he feels the biggest threat from. 

It hurts to realize that for all the insults he had thrown her way, this man hasn’t pointed his gun at her once. He doesn’t consider her a threat. Anger flares up and for a brief moment, she envisions herself ripping his throat open with her knife and dragging everything out in search of major arteries. It is an eerily specific vision. 

“We were thinking that the army or the national guard should be showing up any day now.”

“There is no army.” Rick informs them. 

“What do you mean?” 

Rick continues. “There's no government, no hospitals, no police. It's all gone.”

“For real?” Emily is a little surprised that the prisoners don’t look happier about it. But then… they are still citizens. They probably had plans for when they got out of prison. They had lives. They had to be more than just criminals. 

“I'm serious.”

“What about my moms?” 

“My kids? And my old lady? Yo, you got a cell phone or something that we can call our families?” 

“You just don't get it, do you?” Daryl takes a step close to Rick. 

“No phones, no computers.” Rick explains. A part of her wishes he hadn’t. He us in affect convincing these men that they don't want to leave. "As far as we can see, at least half the population has been wiped out.”

“Probably more.” Daryl smothers what little hope Rick offered. 

“Ain't no way.” 

“See for yourself.” How is Rick so patient? 

The men go outside and T-Dog shakes his head at her from behind the group. “GI Jane’s in big trouble. You best go back to your cell.” He says quietly. 

She looks up at him and wonders if it even matters. “Isn’t that closing the stable doors after the horses get out?” 

“Just go back t’ ya cell, kid.” Daryl grunts. 

Emily wants to argue that she is 18 years old but goes back to her cell. If both of them are saying the same thing, it is time to take a hint. 

\----------------------------------------

Hours ticked by. 

She heard Lori, Carol, Maggie and Glenn trying to keep Hershel alive. She overheard Rick update them about the prisoners making a deal for food to help them take their own cell block. She doesn’t hear the details of what happened to that. She is only aware when Carol comes into her cell with a bowl of oatmeal. 

“Time to eat.” 

“How’s Hershel doing?” Emily asks her. 

Carol avoids answering the question by handing the bowl to her and turning to leave. 

“How mad is Rick at me?” 

“You’re a pregnant woman that decided to get involved in a potentially lethal gunfight.” Carol’s eyes cut into her. “You keep this kinda thing up and I’ll wanna shoot you myself.” 

It feels as though Emily's throat is closing. “I wanted to help but… I couldn’t deal with Hershel’s leg.” 

She doesn’t know what she expected Carol to say to her. But when Carol walks away, Emily wonders if her days with the group are numbered. She isn’t just a burden on food and security. She adds stress to the group. She cares about them. She doesn’t want anyone to get killed because of her. Should she just leave? That would be what’s best for the group and she wants to be a part of the group. Leaving would be suicidal now.

The baby kicks her. 

Would leaving be best for the baby? The answer is unequivocally, no. 

When she makes rushed decisions, she makes the wrong one. If she is going to be a parent… that thought throws her for a loop. Terror grips her. 

A parent. A mother. She is going to be the adult that has to make decisions. It is the same fear that has been cropping up for months now. She is long past any possibility of abortion. And adoption doesn’t exist in this world. Sometimes, when she wakes up drowning in fear for her and the baby, she wonders if she should kill the both of them. How could she bring a baby into this world? A teenage mother for a parent in a place where she makes more mistakes than good decisions. Bringing a baby to life isn’t a gift. If she just killed herself, take the baby with her, the kid would never know any of misery and fear and sorrow and guilt-

Her thoughts cut off when Rick arrives at her cell door. 

“Wha’ were you thinkin’?” 

“I couldn’t handle Hershel. And I needed to help. I realize now that it was wrong-”

He moves up to her bunk, until his face is close to hers. “You’re damn right it was wrong. If the baby were in your arms, would you walk in there with your rifle?” 

Her heart skips a beat as she stares into his eyes. “No.” Her voice is too husky to sound much more than a squeak. It takes all of her effort to keep from crying. “I can’t be a mother.” 

“You have to be. In the old world, your job would be to read up and paint a nursery and all that. I know how much you wanna be a productive member of our group. And I get it. But sometimes, the most valuable thing you can do is nothing. Hershel had help. I had help. Next time things look like they’re gettin’ outta hand, could you find some place safe and wait it out?” 

Staring into his blue eyes, Emily starts to feel a little lost. Her body warms and she feels embarrassed. Awareness creeps in that her body is reacting to him much like it had after Wade had been stroking her folds for awhile. Only, Rick hadn’t done anything untoward. She blushes fully when her imagination unleashes an unbidden image of Rick’s face and body over the memory of Wade’s during sex. How could she fantasize about something so inappropriate about a married man? And it has nothing to do with the question he asked her. Worse, she realizes he is still waiting for her answer. What did he ask her? 

Emily gulps. “That was… wrong. I was wrong. I’ll never do that again.” 

“But will you stay out of sight when there’s trouble?” 

That was it! That was what he had been talking about. “Yes!” She says too enthusiastically and he looks strangely at her. 

Rick hesitates but then nods and leaves the cell. 

When he leaves her sight, she releases the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. What is wrong with her? Rick has a wife who is expecting a baby and is past her due date, dangerous criminals are on his footstep and he has a dozen people to look after. He doesn’t need her ridiculous crush. 

She is scared and alone and latching onto a man because he has been showing her kindness. That is what she tells herself. She has to get over it. 

Except she does the opposite. It has been so long since she had sex or masturbated. She lies back in her bunk and touches herself. Replacing Wade with Rick in her memories and in her imagination, the sex is a thousand times better. She imagines it isn’t Wade’s baby she’s carrying. She imagines it’s Rick’s and she feels a shiver of excitement. In the middle of her orgasm, Lori and Carl pop up in her mind and she feels deep shame, embarrassment and guilt. She cries out in a confusing mix of pleasure with a sob. 

Emily lies on her side and cries for everyone. Herself. Her unborn baby. Her family. Rick’s family. The Arnett’s. The rest of her group. 

“You okay Emily?” She hears Beth ask from the doorway. Hershel might be dying. Beth has enough on her plate and she is too embarrassed to admit to her fantasies.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” In future, Emily will stay out of the way. 

\----------------------------------------------

The first sign there was a problem that Emily was aware of, was when the prison alarms started blaring. She had been sleeping in her bunk. The past couple of days, she had mostly been hiding out in their cell. Her first instinct was to run out and check what was happening. She climbed out of her bunk and went for the door. That is where she stopped. This is exactly the sort of thing Rick said he wanted her to stay out of sight for. She can’t afford to disobey Rick again. 

She climbs back into her bunk and lies as flat as she can. A difficult feat with her large belly. She can’t see downstairs from where she is. Light comes through the windows but she can’t see what is happening. Gunshots crack over the deafening alarm. She covers her ears but it only muffles it slightly. Her instincts are telling her chaos is happening outside. It is eerie how she can’t hear their voices screaming or yelling. 

That’s when she sees a walker on the stairs. She realizes as soon as it reaches her floor, it will have a direct view of her. She climbs down from the bunk to hide under the bottom bunk.The outside door slams as she is sliding in. She wants to yell for them but the walker on the stairs would only be alerted to her presence. There must be more happening but with the alarm, she doesn’t know anything. 

The walker shuffles past her cell. She feels a thud on the ground but doesn’t know what it means. 

“Emily?” Daryl yells over the alarm. She slides out and he gives a nod. “Stay in here.” Her mouth falls open as he slams her cell door closed and locks it. 

“I can’t stay in here.” But he had already left her behind. 

More gunshots reverberate against the prison walls as she sits resigned on Lori’s bunk. It feels like an eternity, but eventually the alarm stops. She hears running footsteps pounding the hard floors. 

“Emily!” Daryl calls to her. 

“Right here!” She calls back to him. 

“Right where I left her.” She hears boots on metal as someone runs up the stairs. 

Rick looks relieved as he unlocks her cell. 

“Is everyone okay?” He doesn’t answer her. 

“Emily, stay close. Glenn, watch her.” 

He takes off running at a speed that Emily knows she can’t match. 

She is only halfway down the stairs when she sees Axel and Oscar are there too. 

At first, she is blinded by sunlight when she steps outside. 

“We’re going back! Daryl and Glenn, you come with me…”

They all hear the baby cry at the same time. The scene that follows is heartbreaking. 

When her Dad died, Emily couldn’t see what happened. She heard her mother screaming. She always thought her mother was screaming because she was being eaten alive. And yes, that was probably part of it. But watching Rick react to his estranged wife’s death, she wonders if her mother was wailing in mourning for her father before the walkers got to her. Did her cry change?

For however hurt and lost she felt when her parents died and she lost Agatha, her older sister, she hadn’t felt what Rick is feeling. Was there something wrong with her and Nina? The two sisters had felt sorrow and loss. But neither of them had been wounded the way Rick and Carl are now.

Watching Rick break, she would tear a piece of her heart out for the man if it would make him feel better. The guilt and shame of her fantasies about him and his own pain are like lashes from a whip. If she could only lessen his pain, she might ease her own. But she doesn’t have to be good at reading people to see that there is absolutely nothing that she can do or offer him that would take any of the sting out of this.


	8. An Ocean Crashing on the Shore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They deal with the aftermath of Lori's death, meet the governor and have multiple surprise newcomers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was difficult to break up. Either it would've been a short chapter or a long chapter. I decided to just go with a longer chapter. Enjoy!

Rick stands up. His eyes distant. Daryl tries to break through the haze. Rick’s blank gaze remains unchanged. The rest of the group starts discussing what to do about the baby but as Emily watches Rick, it begins to sink that Lori is really gone. Her first thoughts had been of the day her parents had died. The day she became an orphan. But that was her trying to avoid the inevitable personal meaning this all had. 

She stares at the door to the prison that Maggie, Carl and the baby came out of. Lori didn’t get through the delivery. And Emily is only a month behind her. She isn’t going to make it. Emily is sinking in a thick, dark bog of despair. She will drown on the muck and slime of her hopeless worries. Lorry and Rick have been pillars of strength. Until she witnessed their demise, she clung to hope. They could carry themselves and the group would help her. She would die, her child would die. They all would die eventually and there wasn’t a future. She is merely a witness to the death rattles of humanity’s last days. 

How didn’t she see this sooner? Hope. She had grasped onto whatever straws of hope were available. But seeing Rick and that baby, this realization has dawned on her. Even if she and the baby survive, they have nothing to offer it. She knew she didn’t have anything to offer it. But Rick’s face. He didn’t have anything to offer Lori’s child. And he had the most to offer out of all of them. 

They are vultures, scavenging on the carcass humanity left behind. The prison is the skeleton. The food stores are the flesh. And the fences are the sinew holding it all together. They are ugly and worthless and belong with the dead. Her stomach revolts at the images. 

“Emily, you gotta eat.” 

She looks up. Hershel is talking to her. Only, she isn’t standing in the courtyard anymore. She is in the bottom bunk. And her ass is numb. Her stomach is past the point of hunger where she feels indifferent to it. A substantial amount of time has passed. Hershel was only just starting to get around. But here he is nursing her. A bowl of broth in his hand, sitting in a chair by her side. 

“There you are.” Hershel greets her when she makes eye contact with him. He offers the bowl of food to her. 

She pulls away and lies on the bunk with her back to him. 

“The baby needs you to eat.” 

“Why?” 

Hershel doesn’t seem to have an answer for her at first. And when he does answer her, he has taken so long she almost forgot her question. “Did you love your family when they were around?” 

Sitting up, she nods. 

“That’s why you’re gonna eat it.” 

He patted her on the shoulder and hobbled away on his crutches. 

A baby coo’s and she hears unfamiliar hushed voices further into the prison. The commons possibly. She feels foolish and embarrassed as the sounds of life reach her. No new found hope has reached her. No special determination. She has simply been grounded back into reality. In future, she will need to remember that Rick is just a man. Emily had grown to view him as a hero. Depended on him in ways that he never offered to her. She had been so desperate for more than a leader, she had attributed near superhero abilities to him that no one had claimed he had. 

Rick is just a man and that is the real reason why he crumbled when Lori died. Everyone has a limit. She had witnessed two men she had grown to view as near gods have mental breakdowns now. The only difference between Wade and the two men she had elevated to unrealistic levels was that they were better men. They had taken on too much burden. She thought of Atlas bearing the burden of the world across his shoulders. And then she saw herself depositing her own building sized cross on his burden. 

With everything this group has done for her and when they could have used her help, she hadn’t met the challenge. 

She eats her broth and goes downstairs with her bowl to find Hershel holding the baby. A box on the table has the words: “Little Asskicker” on the side. The voices from the commons must have been imaginary, because it is empty. 

The baby girl is beautiful. 

“You wanna hold her?” Hershel offers. 

Emily stares at her. She should see a baby, but she see’s a taste of the magnitude of the responsibility she is about to take on. She changes the subject after staring silently for too long. 

“How’s Rick?” 

Hershel’s worry is written all over his face. “Glenn and Maggie were taken.” 

“Taken? They were alive-”

He shakes his head. “You’ve been out of it for days now. They’re alive. But they were kidnapped by ‘nother town. Rick, Daryl, Oscar and a woman called Michonne have gone to get them back.” 

“You didn’t answer my question. How’s Rick?” 

The old veterinarian sighs. “He’s not talkin’ to anyone ‘bout it.” 

“I don’t suppose he would.” Emily says quietly. 

“New people came. Pro’bly won’t be stayin’.” 

New people? Michonne? How did everything change so fast? 

When he brings up what she just came out of, she isn’t expecting it. “You got a lot of hormones running through you right now. Bound to get the better of you sometimes.” 

“Can we… not talk about that anymore?” He nods. “Where are Carol, Beth and Carl?”

“Outside. Keepin’ an eye on our guests an’ watchin’ for Rick and the others to come back.”

“Right.” 

Axel walks through the door and pauses to look at her. Four strangers file past him into the commons. Their eyes flicker between her and her heavily pregnant belly. Beth brings up the rear. 

She wonders what they were doing outside. 

“You didn’t mention you guys were expecting another baby.” The black woman breathes. Her comment hangs in the air. “When you due?” The woman tries to hide her fear with a warm smile, but Emily can see it. Even this stranger is scared for her. 

“In a month or so?” 

“Father around here?” 

For a moment, Emily thinks she is talking about her own father. But she realizes two things just as quickly. The woman is asking about Wade and it doesn’t matter which father the woman is asking about because they’re both dead. “You sure ask a lot of questions. Hershel, I’m takin’ a walk.” 

She ducks her head and goes outside. The hot summer sun sucks the air out of lungs on her first breath. It was hot in the prison but she is surprised that it is so much hotter outside. There is a powerful stench hanging in the air. The oppressive heat is enough to consider going back the way she came. But she doesn’t want to deal with anymore of Hershel’s questions. Or that woman’s questions. 

Tires on gravel reaches them before the sound of the engine. Emily is surprised it isn’t the sound of the car engine she hears first. Are they back? Carol opens the gate. Her heart sings when she sees Rick, Glenn and Maggie get out of the Hyundai. Only… where’s Daryl? And wasn’t there that other prisoner? Oscar? That is when she spots a woman them. Is that Michonne? She can see Carol talking them. 

Carl runs past her and into the prison. The group walks up to her from the gate. Hershel comes outside with Axel on his tail. The reunion is joyous, but Emily senses information is being held back. She hangs back, unable to celebrate when she see’s so much is wrong. When no one else asks, she gives up on waiting. 

“Where’s Daryl? Where’s Oscar? Who is that woman?” She points at the injured woman standing off to one side. “Why isn’t Maggie wearing a bra?” 

“Emily!” Carol and Maggie snap at her. 

Her eyes don’t leave Maggie. Watching her reaction. The woman avoids eye contact and ducks into the prison with Glenn following her. She was played the fool by the Arnett’s. She isn’t going to wait endlessly for the truth anymore. She will get the information she wants. And the first piece of information she has is that something happened to Maggie that she was ashamed of. 

“They raped her.” She says frankly. 

Rick’s head snaps to her. “You don’t know that.” 

“Did you see their faces?” 

The man doesn’t know how to respond. 

“Something happened.” A part of Emily jumps up and down in the back of her mind saying that she is being cruel and rude and insensitive. But she has concerns. “Maggie and Glenn are careful. But I’ve never heard of a rapist putting on a condom. Do we have morning after pills for her? Because-” 

“Emily stop.” Rick snaps at her. “Just stop it now. I know you’re tryin’ to be practical but this-” 

“You’re all thinking the same thing. Only difference is I think the consequences of sayin’ nothing is too steep for us as a group. A third baby and it belonging to her rapist is-” 

Rick grabs her by the elbow and drags her away from the group. She watches them file into the prison. She hears her shoes scuff on the ground as he marches too quickly for her. She says his name a few times before he takes her around the corner and pushes her up against the wall. 

When those eyes pierce into hers, Emily forgets what she was about to say to him. “When we left, you were lost. Glad you’re back, but we don’t go into each other’s sex lives. It’s an unspoken agreement. I trust Maggie and Glenn to handle this. Just ‘cause it happened to you, don’t mean that happened-” 

“I wasn’t raped.” Emily’s baby isn’t a product of rape. 

Rick looks as though he is about to argue with her but shakes his head. “The point is, you’re not gonna do anything like you just did again.” 

“Or what?” 

Everything about his tone shifts to a dark warning. “You act like a child and I’ll treat you like a child.” His eyes watch hers to see that she sees that he is speaking the truth. He doesn’t need to explain what that means. She knows nothing good could come of it. She nods in understanding. Then asks her next question. 

“Is he dead?” She doesn’t have to say his name. They both know she is talking about Daryl. 

He shakes his head. “We found his brother-” he continues talking but Emily doesn’t hear anything past that. Merle, the man who cut off his own hand, trapped on a roof in the middle of an infested city was alive. If he was survived, why couldn’t Agatha have survived. Guilt flares up. She had given up on Agatha so quickly. She had seen walkers on the bodies of her parents but never saw a body for Agatha. 

“If Agatha was found alive, I couldn’t leave her.” 

“Yeah… well.” Rick seems taken off guard. He leaves her there for the cell block. 

Words to describe his behaviour pop up in her head. Arratic. Confused… Crazy. He isn’t okay. When she saw him again, coming back from leading a raid, she thought his breakdown was over. But it must have just been put on hold because they needed him. Her father hadn’t put his on hold for people. Did Rick care more for his family that her father did? 

Screaming and yelling escapes the prison. Emily runs for the cell block C when people stream outside. The woman who asked a lot of questions her friends and the rest of the group come outside. Rick, Hershel, Carol and Glenn are missing. Probably inside with Rick. 

“What did you say to him?” Beth asks her, Lori’s baby cradled in her arms. 

“What happened in there?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Well he didn’t say much to me.” 

Have they lost their leader to madness? 

\----------------------------------------

The next day is cooler. The courtyard is quiet as Emily walks its inner rim. Carol and Axel are talking. The other group are inside. Glenn has taken off on his own. Beth and Carl are talking. Hershel is at the fence. Rick is outside the fence being crazy. Maggie and Judith are inside cell block C. And who knows where Michonne is? The woman is a damn shadow. Always melting into the background unnoticed. 

The weight from the baby has moved further down still. It doesn’t bother her stomach anymore. It feels as though she has a bowling ball weighing down on her pelvis. Her hips and lower back ache. She can walk without waddling but she chooses to waddle because it hurts less. It wasn’t like this yesterday. It feels as though something changed during the night. Is this it? Is she going to go into labour? If she does, it’s weeks sooner than Hershel estimated. 

Muscles contract without her choosing to all around her stomach. She stops and holds onto the wall as pain clamps down on her. Emily gasps for breath. And then a single shot rings out. She looks around and watches Axel drop to the ground. 

Next thing she knows, gunfire erupts across the prison. Fight or flight instinct sends her running for cover against cell block D. Carol uses Axel’s body to protect her from the bullets raining down on her. All Emily has on her is her knife. Beth and Carl had hidden behind benches but start firing at the watchtower and run over beside her. 

The muscles around her belly tighten a hundred fold and she grimaces in pain. The screw tightens and tightens until she crumples to the ground. 

“Emily!” Beth cries out. 

The look in Carl’s eyes when he glances at her causes her shadow to pass over her. He has already accepted her death. He knows she isn’t going to make it. To her dismay, she realizes he is probably right. 

The pain eases off and Emily pants for air. She hears an engine gunning it right before it crashes against chain link. She sees Maggie has shown up with guns. When did that even happen? During the contraction? Everything is happening too fast. The gunfire doesn’t let up. 

“Hershel! Get outta there!” She hears Rick bellow from across the field. There is still hope for her group, even if there isn’t any for her. 

She takes up her rifle that had been passed to her at some point and steps into the line of fire. Armed gun men are leaving and walkers are wandering the field. She looks down her sight and begins firing on the walkers. She picks off a handful of walkers before she sees the trouble Rick is in. She starts firing on walkers coming at him. But she is slowed down being careful not to hit him. He runs out of bullets and is cornered. She takes down one of the walkers pressing him into the fence. But the second one falls and that wasn’t her or Rick. Daryl and another man show up. 

Another contraction slams into her. 

“Ughhh!” Tears slip from her face. 

“Emily?” Carol and Maggie are at her side and leading her into cell block C in a few short moments. 

“I don’t wanna do this today.” Emily whines. 

“What’s goin’ on?” She hears Rick ask. 

“Think she might be going into pre-term labor. Dad!” Maggie calls for her father but he is already hobbling their way. 

They put her down on a bunk and Hershel examines. She hears others in the cell block arguing in hushed tones. 

“Emily, I want you to take deep breaths and relax.” 

It sounds like an impossible request, but Emily closes her eyes and takes long deep breathes. The next contraction hurts less than the last. She opens her eyes and looks at Hershel with surprise. He smiles at her. 

“Gunfight got you all wound up. You let it and you’ll go into labor early. Don’t think you’re too far gone to pull this back.” He pats her hand. “You’re close. Close enough that it could happen any time now. But I think you and the baby could benefit from another week. I don’t think you’re 37 weeks just yet.” 

Exhaling harshly, she stares up at the bunk above her focuses on relaxing her body. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Hershel leave and Maggie and Carol come in. She focuses her eyes above her and listens to them outside her bunk. The next contraction crops up and it’s not painful. Just the muscles around her belly tightening of their own accord. 

“She gonna go off now?” She recognizes Daryl’s voice. 

“If she can relax, she can bring it back a little. Her body isn’t done getting ready for the baby. She goes now and I think somethin’ real bad’s gonna happen. She needs more time.” 

“So it was stress that sent her off.” She doesn’t catch which voice that belonged to. 

There is a pause. “That her contractions calmed down when we got her calmed down, I’d say it was stress. She’s not Lori. Lori was prone to placenta previa. Emily’s not too young, she’s all grown. She’s had good nutrition all through this pregnancy. No history of placenta previa on top of that, odds are in her favor. I just think her and the baby need more time.” 

“Girly don’t got more time.” A loud, unfamiliar voice booms from the far end of the prison. “We need to get out here before we get trapped in here. You know the gove’nor’s comin’ back.” 

Her heart races at the thought of whoever killed Axel and took down their gate and brought a bunch of walkers coming back for them. 

“Emily calm down.” Carol soothes her quietly. But the sound of the men arguing below with the loud mouth is anything but calming. 

“I don’t wanna be here when he gets back.” Emily’s voice is husky and hard to hear over the arguing. 

“You gotta relax.” Maggie tries to reassure her, but she can see the fear in the woman’s eyes. 

“Whooooa!” Emily’s body trembles as the next contraction rocks her body. She feels a tiny pop followed by a gush of hot fluid escaping her crotch. Blood? She looks down but the fluid is clear like fresh water. 

“Daddy!” Maggie yells. “Her water just broke with all the arguing.” 

“Well, we ain’t goin’ nowhere now.” A man says plaintively from below. Other voices join him but Emily’s world is taken up mostly with what her body is doing now. Just the loudest voices reaching her consciousness. 

“Couldn’t relax over all that noise, huh?” Hershel murmur’s to her. “Do you have a nightgown or dress to change into?” 

Why would she have a dress? 

“I got a hospital gown on a run.” Maggie hurries out of the room.

Emily doesn’t want to wear a hospital gown. She hasn’t shaved her legs in God only knows how long.

“Alright, change into the gown. I’m gonna have a word with the boys downstairs.” 

Her next contraction hits before she can ask Hershel a question. She cries out. Not even so much from the pain. It hurts a lot, but never found making a lot of noise when she was in pain was something she normally did. She cries out because of her fear and lack of control over everything. “I’m not ready.” She sobs. “I’m not ready, I can’t do this.” 

“Yeah you can.” Carol says factually with knowing but determined look on her face. “You already know you can do it and so do I. Your mother ever tell you about she had you?” 

She nods. Yes, she remembers the stories well. “My mother believed in natural births and breastfeeding. She didn’t like the hospitals here. They weren’t Dutch enough for her.” Emily smiles at the memory of her mother’s indignance of their practices. “My big sister was born in the Netherlands, so she had expected the same he-” another contraction takes her attention. 

“By mornin’ they’ll ‘ve blocked any exit.” The men arguing downstairs voices rise louder again. 

She can feel her stress and fear rise with the volume of their arguing. 

“You were sayin’?” Carol pulls her back. 

“Oh… yeah she told me how she paid for her second cousin’s flight all the way over here, so she could have a Dutch midwife. And I could be born an American citizen. No application forms like with Agatha.” 

“Your Mom didn’t have her American citizenship?” 

She shakes her head. “She loved Dad, but she couldn’t give up her Dutch citizenship.” Another thought occurs to her. “She has 32 hour home birth with me at 41 weeks. I can’t take 26 hours of this.” 

Carol tries to hide the concern on her face with a soft smile. “Did your sister’s take that long?” 

“No. They were both fast deliveries. My Mom thought it was because the cord was wrapped around my neck.” She feels her belly tighten just before the next contraction rocks her. 

Carol’s voice is in her ear but she doesn’t take in what Carol says. She can’t focus on anything but inside her. When the contraction ends, she sees a hospital gown on her lap the the cell is empty. She quickly changes into the gown. 

“So who was puttin’ the wood to girly upstairs?” Emily hears a man say and blushes profusely. “Don’t go all shy on me now. She had to’ve one hot piece of ass before one o’ you’s knocked her up. Bet she-” 

“The father’s dead.” 

It is true. And Emily has known all along. But something about hearing that right now, is too much. What is she bringing this baby into? Wade is supposed to be here. He is supposed to be here, ready to protect his baby. Keep the baby safe to face this world. She sobs. 

The door to her cell opens but she is too occupied with feeling sorry for herself holding onto the bunk bed post to take notice of who it is. 

“Emily.” She see’s Rick standing in front of her. But that only makes her cry harder. “You’re not having a contraction. What’s wrong?” 

“What’s wrong?” She asks sarcastically. Her next contraction rolls into her like a powerful wave crashing on a beach. 

When the pain eases off, she sees she is gripping Rick’s hand painfully. That should be Wade holding her hand. She might not have loved Wade but it seems impossibly wrong that he isn’t here. 

She breaks down crying again. Except, Rick doesn’t leave. “You can’t be Wade!” She wails at him. “You can’t take his place. This is his job. He did this. How could he leave me like this?” 

“I don’t think he got a choice.” Rick points out awkwardly. 

It occurs to her that the odds are high that Rick was the man that killed Wade. But it comes back to the same thing. 

“We saw you guys. I told him you guys were struggling. I told him desperate people are more dangerous but he said you were weak. He chose to go get himself killed. I knew-” pain crashes into her. “No!” She screams through her pain. “I don’t wanna do this! He wanted a baby. Why can’t it be Wade left alone with it?” 

“You’re good at this.” Maggie’s voice surprises her. 

“What?” 

“Feelin’ sorry for yourself. You’re really good at it. Now, why don’t you show me what else you’re good at?” 

It doesn’t escape her notice that Rick is gone. Bitterness stirs. “Fuck you!” She yells at Maggie. 

The same annoying voice howls with laughter downstairs. Rage flares up and she shoves past Maggie and Carol to the railing over the open space. She sees the man who must be Daryl’s brother grinning up at her from behind bars in the common area. 

“Shut up or I’ll knock you out!” 

“Not much of a threat, honey!” He grins up at her smugly. He opens his mouth to say something but she interrupts him. 

“Yeah but you won’t like what happens when you wake up.” He raises an eyebrow curiously. 

“Oh yeah? What’ll I find sugartits?” 

“I’ll strip you down, handcuff you outside the fence and duct tape all the important parts so you’ll live a lot longer while the walkers eat you alive.”

His body freezes. 

She looks at the metal contraption on his stump. “A man who’ll cut of his own hand to avoid being eaten alive by walkers has to be a little afraid of them.” She stomps back to her cell, aware of the silence she left behind her. Her next labor pain nearly knocks her down. After threatening that asshole, she refuses to cry out. 

When it ends, she feels an odd atmosphere in her cell block. She looks up and sees Maggie, Carol and Hershel looking at her oddly. 

“What?” 

“Sure know how to threaten a man.” Hershel observes.

“I’ve heard them all.” 

That only confuses him but he lets it go. “Lay down and let me take a look how you’re doin’.” Hershel instructs gently. 

Emily lies down and stares at the bunk above her head. Months of Hershel acting as her midwife, she is relatively comfortable with his touch. But it doesn’t make her like it. 

“Relax your legs more.” He instructs. 

Trying to ignore what he is doing, she marvels at how much more effective her threat against that man was than she expected it to be. He looked like a hardened criminal. Is she getting any better at reading people? 

Those thoughts dissipate with her next contraction. Instead, she thinks about how she got into this mess. Wade. Memories of their first time together stir revulsion. She hadn’t felt revulsion at the time. But she feels it now. She feels used and abandoned. She remembers him grunting loudly with a forceful thrust inside of her and the unspecific sensation of him filling her. 

“You’re progressing well. Baby’s head is engaged down into your pelvis. You’re doin’ well, Emily.” Hershel assures her warmly. 

Should she believe him? Would he tell her otherwise? She looks at Carol and Maggie. The relief on their faces is palpable. She thinks he is telling the truth. 

“How long?” She asks him. 

“Couldn’t say.” 

That isn’t the answer she wants to hear. She pulls herself up on her feet. 

“You don’t wanna lay down?” Carol asks. 

“I need to move.” She knows she needs to move like she knows when she is thirsty or hungry. 

“We don’t have anythin’ for the pain for her. Pro’bly best we can offer her right now.” 

Carol nods. 

“You have an epidural when you…” she trails off as she remembers Carol probably doesn’t want to talk about her deceased daughter. 

The woman’s eyes water up but she nods. 

Concluding anything she says is probably going to set someone off, Emily opts to walk the length of the upper level of the cell block. Of course, it’s more like a waddle. She stops at the north end when the next contraction lays into her and grips the railing. 

Her eyes are open and she can hear herself panting through the pain. But none of that information registers. So when the contraction ends, she gasps when she sees Daryl standing below watching her with an intense look. Sweat trickles down her the center of her back. She stares openly back at him. The contractions already beginning to wear her down, she can’t be bothered about social queues. 

Daryl finally says with the hint of a grin on his face. “You’re tougher than you let on.” 

Her father had said the same thing about her. She stares back at him. Emily doesn’t have anything to say in response to that. 

He nods. “You’re gonna get through this just fine. I can feel it.” 

Irritation rises up in her. “Of course, I’m gonna get through this. Is the baby?” Wait, since when did she become so confident that she was going to be okay? And when did she start fearing for the baby. Another contraction rips a grunt of pain from her as it takes over her entire being. “Fucking God in Heaven.” She utters under her breath and walks away. In truth, she forgot she was talking to him. It seems as though that contraction was a lot more powerful than the last. 

Barely five steps away the next contraction grips her. “Uhhh…” her surprise at the short time since her last contraction is registered in her tone. She feels the urge to push. “How long have I been in labour now?” Her voice is strained as she speaks during her long contraction. It isn’t just her belly and inside contracting now. It feels as though it starts in her belly and moves through her thighs. 

“About 4 hours?” Hershel answers her. 

“Four hours?” How did she just lose 4 hours? It feels like less than an hour. The bowling ball sensation feel as though it has moved impossibly low. She feels as though if she reaches between her thighs, she might find a baby. “Oh God!” She feels her body pushing the baby out. The contraction isn’t stopping. It is just continuing. 

“What is it?” 

“I’m pushing. I can’t stop, I’m pushing.” 

Someone is trying to guide her to her cell but her body isn’t going anywhere. Her entire body is straining of its own accord. “It hurts!” 

“You have to come here, Emily.” 

“I can feel the head!” She grabs between her thighs and feels Maggie and Glenn pick her up. “I’m gonna break! Hershel, how do I stop it! It’s too fast!” They deposit her on her bunk. 

“Emily, you just have to calm down and stop pushing.” Carol tells her as though it were obvious. 

She glares up at Carol, furious with the older woman. “I’m not pushing! It’s just coming on it’s own!” She starts crying in panic. All control has been taken out of her arms and she fears she will be torn beyond repair. “It burns! I can’t-” the others are talking and she can sense the flurry of activity around her. She shoves people away and squats on the bed. “I can’t lie down. I can’t.” 

“Easy now.” She hears Hershel. “Look at me.” 

She does her best to make eye contact with him. Right now, it feels like he is asking her to break the sound barrier running as fast as she can. 

“Emily, I said look at me.” He repeats. 

“Ahhh!” Her scream gives way into a grunt as the head emerges slowly. 

“Oh man!” She hears Glenn. 

Normally she would be pretty angry about him being in there. About anyone seeing her like this. But she can’t think as abstractly as matters of propriety right now. She becomes distantly aware that she is hanging onto the bunk above her for support as she squats on the mattress. 

“There’s the head. Just the shoulders to go.” Hershel encourages her. 

“My body isn’t pushing the baby anymore.” She says it more out of surprise than anything. 

“Then you’re gonna have to do it now.” Hershel states the obvious. 

“How?” She doesn’t even know which muscles were pushing. It felt more like her body had been contracting. 

Hershel doesn’t respond. 

“I couldn’t figure it out either. I just pretended like I was pooping.” 

As much as she hates that plan, she needs this baby out now. She gives one hard push and feels the wet, hard solid mass emerge. She collapses back on the bunk when she hears a loud, angry newborn screech. 

“It’s a boy. He’s strong.” Hershel announces. 

Emily lies back and listens to his screams. Joy filling her but only able to give a small smile just yet. They made it. She looks over at him and sees his red face and powerful little lungs and for once, she can be happy with what she has right now. She isn’t worrying about tomorrow. Emily is just enjoying her son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could use some feedback if you have any, please.


End file.
